Strange game designer.

Chapter 811 The List of Those Who Take Their Final Bow
Orphans are not necessarily lonely; it is those who can never find their own home who are.

Gao Ming waited outside the door for a long time before the door of the small house finally opened from the inside. The little girl, who had changed into her pajamas, peeked out and looked at Gao Ming with a mixture of curiosity and fear.

"The headmistress asked me to give this to you. She said she would pick you up after you did the right thing, just like every time before."

The girl handed Gao Ming a piece of drawing paper torn from a storybook. It contained a handwritten list, with a key place name marked after each name.

Xia Yang, Sky Hotel.

Gao Ming, Shanghai No.1 High School.

Afang, an apartment building near a coal and coke plant.

Situ An, Shanghai No. 7 Special Hospital.

Bucha (Jingtuo Shen), Xinhu Public Cemetery Management Office.

……

The list contains ten names, which seem to represent the nine candidates for Blood City selected by Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals. Gao Ming was probably included by accident.

"What does it say?" The little girl, who couldn't read, asked with great curiosity.

"The addresses and workplaces of my former colleagues." Gao Ming squatted down in front of the little girl and peered through the crack in the door.

“The headmistress is very busy, but she said she would pick you up, so she will definitely go.” The little girl looked guilty and sneakily approached Gao Ming: “I’ve never seen the headmistress like this before. Well, I don’t know how to say it, but she seems to have become more beautiful and younger after seeing you. You two should spend more time together.”

Gao Ming withdrew his gaze; he had already understood Xuan Wen's meaning. After pausing for a moment, he turned and disappeared into the darkness.

The night was dark, but the Sky Hotel was still brightly lit. This hotel is one of the landmarks of the new Shanghai Smart City. It was built five years ago and is known for its luxury, high price and ultimate service.

Following behind the hotel manager, Gao Ming manipulated people's dreams. After becoming the lord of Blood City, he no longer needed to be careful. The rules of reality could hardly restrain him, and he could do whatever he wanted.

Take the elevator to the top of the hotel, where there is a suite that is not open to the public. The room number happens to be Xia Yang's birthday.

"Sir, I've never been to this room before; you need a special room card."

"You can go and rest now. Sweet dreams." After the manager left, Gao Ming easily broke the lock and entered.

The Sky Suite, overlooking the smart city, is filled with paintings.

Xia Yang is full of lies, but his works are very sincere, and every stroke truly expresses his inner feelings.

Unlike other candidates, Xia Yang was born with everything. He was able to hold a solo art exhibition in his twenties and have his works exhibited in international galleries. This is something that cannot be achieved by talent and painting skills alone.

Xia Yang's mother is the actual owner of Xin Hu Tian Ji, and his father's identity is something that cannot be mentioned much in Xin Hu. It is not something that cannot be spoken of, but it is indeed inconvenient to talk about it.

At a very young age, Xia Yang showed exceptional talent. He inherited his parents' best genes, possessed a photographic memory, and was skilled in many things. He could have become a wealthy businessman, an excellent doctor, a competent politician, or a genius chess player, but he was not interested in any of these. He only liked drawing.

Standing in the center of the room, Gao Ming looked at the three-meter by three-meter oil painting on the wall—God himself handed the apple to Adam.

It's incredibly realistic, like a photograph. This was drawn by Xia Yang when he was eighteen. The blood-red apple isn't tempting; if you get closer, you can see the pained faces drawn on its surface—those are Xia Yang's family members.

Looking closer, Adam is naked, his gaze not devout; he squints and smiles as he looks at God.

As his gaze shifted, Gao Ming felt that the God in Xia Yang's painting bore a striking resemblance to Lu Zang. The omniscient and omnipotent God now had a concrete face, and his appearance changed Xia Yang's fate.

When Gao Ming touched the painting, the dust took on color. He used his dream demon abilities to capture Xia Yang's emotions in the painting and transformed them into a dream.

The dream was too illusory, so Gao Ming began to explore other works. Xia Yang's early works were mainly realistic, but after he grew up, they became increasingly absurd and bizarre. It seemed that the world in Xia Yang's eyes had become different from that of ordinary people.

His family and friends couldn't understand him, and he didn't need anyone else's understanding; he explored that bizarre world alone.

After a long time, Gao Ming pieced together a past. Lu Zang found Xia Yang on the day he came of age and took him into different human realms, where he saw himself in different fates.

Xia Yang's bizarre and outlandish works are all true records of everything he has seen, but this secret is known only to him and Lu Zang.

“Lu Zang, like me, is not a resident of this Deep World. Why is he doing this?”

Gao Ming soon found the answer: Xia Yang, from a different branch of fate, was killed by Xia Yang living in Xinhu. He swallowed the embers left by the burning fate and continued to devour himself under Lu Zang's guidance.

"Are all the candidates for Blood City of the Vast Ocean trained by Lu Zang in this way?"

“Yes, only you are different.” Teacher Xia’s voice came from the torture chamber. After Gao Ming became the lord of Blood City, he could no longer influence Gao Ming and had been silent until now, when he finally spoke his first words: “The dream you wove reminds me of the past.”

“I went insane a long time ago, but my parents covered it up and turned it into ‘genius’. If I hadn’t killed someone in Xinhu, my family probably would never have admitted that I was insane.”

Xia Yang is a lucid madman; he has always known what he is doing.

"Go and see what other people are doing; they may have chosen a different path than I have."

The door to the Sky Suite was closed, as if no one had ever been there. Only the oil paintings had suddenly faded, turning into black and white.

The clock hands ticked gently, and the next moment Gao Ming appeared at the Xinhu Public Cemetery Management Office. After searching the staff's dreams, Gao Ming found the traces of Buksha, the god Jingtuo.

He was an orphan who grew up on the charity of others. He spent his childhood in temples and opera troupes until one day he dreamed of a real god.

Gao Ming found a handmade statue of the deity in the place where Jing Tuo had worked, which bore some resemblance to Lu Zang.

By tracing the remaining threads of fate on the statue, Gao Ming arrived at the public cemetery managed by Jing Tuo.

In the northeast corner, Gao Ming saw a large area of ​​blank tombstones; most of those buried here were homeless people and elderly people living alone.

When one of the graves was dug up, instead of the deceased's ashes, a portrait of Jingtuo himself was placed inside.

These portraits come from different people, their fates intertwined and complex, making it difficult to discern their threads.

Gao Ming dug up grave after grave. The only thing that could be confirmed now was that Lu Zang had also taken Jing Tuo to see different worlds. However, unlike Xia Yang, who killed his other selves, Jing Tuo chose the path of commemorating the other selves who had died in the human world.

(End of this chapter)