The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 260 Losing is Winning
The cheap red and blue lights on the pinball game interface, with their nostalgic red and blue hues, danced rapidly to the game's sound effects. Feng Yongfu's breathing quickened with the rhythm. The pinballs passed through several forks in the path and fell randomly. The gaps were marked with different numbers from 0 to 6. Everyone knew which gap a pinball landed in and how many pinballs it would reward.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, the marble fell into lane number 6.

In a normal game, this would be winning the jackpot.

Before the joy of passing the test could even take hold in the hearts of the others, Feng Yongfu had already swiftly fallen to the side.

Then Zhong Xiaoyu shouted, "Get down!"

Having undergone professional training, Qi Fei and Wu Shanqiu quickly lay prone on the ground upon hearing the command.

Jiang Tianyi was just a psychologist. Fortunately, Zhong Xiaoyu was prepared and lunged at Jiang Tianyi as she spoke, and the two of them fell to the ground at the same time.

Qi Fei could feel a strong gust of air, accompanied by a whistling sound, brushing past his head.

"You're amazing!" came the electronic voice from the game console, mimicking a child's voice, sending chills down one's spine.

After a moment, the game machine resumed playing the nursery rhyme music that had played when they first arrived. Qi Fei cautiously looked up at the game machine, which was flashing colorful lights at a leisurely pace, as if waiting for the next round of participants.

After confirming there was no danger, Qi Fei turned to look in the direction the projectile had flown. On the bridge pier behind them, six holes were clearly visible. Upon closer inspection, six steel balls were embedded in them. He couldn't imagine what the consequences would have been if those steel balls had hit someone.

"Where is Feng Yongfu?" Wu Shanqiu's voice came, and everyone looked around to search, but there was no trace of Feng Yongfu.

It seems they escaped while everyone was hiding.

"Damn it, I should have been closer to him!" Qi Fei said in frustration.

“If you had gotten any closer to him, you would be dead by now,” Zhong Xiaoyu said reassuringly. “At least you forced him to expose the mechanism of this game machine, otherwise someone would have been injured today.”

Qi Fei looked down at the noisy pinball machine: "In a normal pinball machine, you get a certain number of pinballs for each number the ball lands in. It seems that the one Xi He modified rewards the player with a certain number of pinballs for each number the ball lands in."

“The key is that you still have to play this game, otherwise you won’t be able to get any clues about the whereabouts of Qidong County,” Zhong Xiaoyu said. “This is Xi He, the kind of rule a control freak would design.”

"With Feng Yongfu's example, I think this hurdle will be easy to overcome," Qi Fei said, his hand already gripping the pinball machine's handle.

"Brother Fei, be careful!" Wu Shanqiu reminded him anxiously from the side.

"You guys spread out and lie down first." Qi Fei said, his hand already gripping the red ball on the controller, slowly pulling it outwards. Inside the game frame, you could see the spring that launched the marbles was compressing.

"Qi Fei, are you sure the marble will land in the '0' channel?" Zhong Xiaoyu finally became worried and couldn't help but ask.

Qi Fei did not answer. Under his focused gaze, the marble was finally launched.

The marble rolled rapidly, colliding and sliding between different obstacles, finally swirling between lane 1 and lane 0. At that moment, his heart was in his throat. Then, with a crisp "clang," the marble finally fell.

The electronic notification sounded again: "Unfortunately, you didn't win this time. Don't be discouraged, try again!" Nothing happened; Qi Fei had won the bet. Even so, in just that short time, his back was already soaked with sweat.

Never before had anyone present felt so happy to hear the news of a game's defeat.

At that moment, the downpour suddenly stopped again, and the pinball machine music also stopped.

The surroundings were eerily quiet, with only the sound of the sea surging beneath the Xiyuan Bridge, lapping against the embankment like breaths.

"And then?" Wu Shanqiu cautiously observed her surroundings, muttering to herself. Suddenly, she smelled a pungent odor in the fresh post-rain air—the stench of burning plastic. She instinctively looked at the game machine and, sure enough, black smoke was billowing from it, causing her to exclaim in surprise, "The pinball machine has spontaneously combusted!"

The fire spread faster than expected, and by the time everyone noticed, the pinball machine was completely engulfed in flames. Accompanied by thick smoke and crackling sounds, within minutes, the game machine had been completely burned to a shell.

"Look, that monster!" Wu Shanqiu said, pointing to the two-headed monster pattern on the wall.

In fact, when Wu Shanqiu said this, the others also noticed that because of the smoke from the flames, the monster's hands changed, pointing from the game console to the east. It seemed that they had been painted with invisible dye beforehand, and would only become visible after being exposed to fire.

The east side of the bridge was covered with cattails taller than a person, swaying violently in the wind.

As Qi Fei approached, he noticed that several cattail leaves were stained with undried blood—it seemed that Feng Yongfu had escaped from here, and had been cut by the cattail leaves in his haste.

Parting the reeds, the stone embankment extending from the bridge pier leads towards the shore.

The stone path was narrow and long, only wide enough for one person to pass through. The four of them had to line up one after the other and feel their way forward. Qi Fei led the way, Wu Shanqiu brought up the back, and Zhong Xiaoyu and Jiang Tianyi were in the middle.

"Junior sister, thank you so much for saving my life just now," Jiang Tianyi said from behind Zhong Xiaoyu.

"Now is not the time to talk about this," Zhong Xiaoyu said softly, tilting her head slightly.

"I'm just glad that you're still the Zhong Xiaoyu I know," Jiang Tianyi continued.

However, Zhong Xiaoyu did not respond again, but simply moved a little closer to Qi Fei.

After groping around for a short while, a culvert suddenly appeared ahead, with wet muddy footprints remaining at the entrance. Without asking, they found the direction Feng Yongfu had fled in.

Qi Fei gripped his gun tightly and stepped into the dark culvert. Water droplets seeping from the cement dripped down intermittently, making his breathing quicken.

“There’s no wind in this cave,” Zhong Xiaoyu’s voice came.

In the darkness, Qi Fei couldn't see her face clearly. Her tone of voice was so different from Zhong Kui's that when Qi Fei heard her voice, he pictured someone who looked completely different from Zhong Kui.

He understood what Zhong Xiaoyu meant. The lack of wind meant that the other end of the culvert was blocked. Whatever they were looking for, it was likely just ahead, inside this culvert.

As he got further and further away from the cave entrance, and the surroundings grew darker until he could barely see any human figures, Qi Fei risked being exposed and took out the flashlight he carried with him. As the flashlight beam swept forward, he saw his long-awaited destination...