My Strange Tale Love Strategy Simulator

Goosebumps instantly erupted from my back to my arms.

Zhang Ying instinctively reached back to grab the hand that was clasped on his shoulder, but when he reached behind him, he grasped nothing.

The hand vanished, as if it had never been there. The pulling force had already knocked him over, causing him to lose his balance and slam his head against the floor with a dull thud!

"hiss--"

The sharp pain in the back of his head made him grimace.

Zhang Ying covered his head and pushed himself up from the ground. The coolness of the wooden floor seeped into his knees through his school uniform pants.

His first reaction was to look behind him, trying to see what had grabbed him. What he saw stunned him completely.

The surrounding scenery was changing. The black mist that permeated the entire vocal room was gradually swallowing up the walls.

The walls' presence faded more and more under the encroaching black mist, like a faded photograph being corroded. In their place, another space emerged.

One dance studio after another emerged from the black mist.

The wall had been knocked down, creating a continuous space. He stood in one of the rooms, his pale face reflected in the mirrored wall.

Besides his room, each dance studio had a life-sized ballet doll in the center, dressed in a white ballet tutu and posing in a fixed dance position.

He counted in his mind, four rooms before and four rooms before and after, plus the one he was standing in, making a total of nine dance studios.

Silence. Deathly silence. Even the sound of rain outside the window had disappeared.

Zhang Ying stood in the middle of the dance studio, his legs trembling. This trembling was beyond his control; his body sensed something was wrong faster than his brain could.

This space was unlike any place he knew. It was more like a piece that had been completely removed from the real world and stuffed into some kind of interlayer that did not belong to reality.

The sky outside the window was pitch black, not the darkness of night, but a void where nothing existed.

He pressed his tongue against the ground, cast a calming spell, and barely managed to suppress the surging panic by half an inch. He tried to take deep breaths, but the air he inhaled felt thinner than the outside air, and his lungs could never be filled.

But after a few repetitions, my heart finally stopped beating so fast.

Calm down. Calm down.

He walked to the nearest door, grasped the doorknob, and pressed down hard.

The handle remained completely still.

The door wasn't locked; it was simply not "open" at all. It was just there, serving as a door in shape. He tried several doors, all with the same result. The window couldn't be opened either; the glass was icy cold to the touch, and he couldn't see anything in the darkness outside.

This space has been completely locked down.

We can't get out. So we can only go in.

His gaze fell upon the nine ballet dolls. Nine, arranged symmetrically. If there was an exit here, the only clue was most likely hidden on these dolls. He turned and walked towards the dolls in the dance studio behind him.

Only when you get close can you see the details. The life-sized ballet doll is dressed in a flawless white ballet tutu, the satin surface shimmering faintly in the cold air.

Its posture is a classic move from Swan Lake, with one foot raised on tiptoe and the arm raised above the head, bent into an elegant arc.

The ball joints at the joints reveal its nature as a doll, but those joints do not bend forward.

It's the opposite. Elbows are turned outwards, knees are bent backwards, and every joint is twisted at an angle that is impossible for the human body to reach.

Zhang Ying swallowed hard and cautiously moved closer. He tried to discern something unique about the doll, his gaze sweeping from the folds of the ballet skirt to the tips of the satin ballet shoes.

Just as he got close enough, a very faint singing voice came from the doll's head. It was very thin and very light, like a music box turning in the distance.

He pricked up his ears, held his breath, and leaned forward a few inches to hear more clearly.

The moment his ear was close to the doll's head, the faint singing suddenly exploded! It turned into a piercing scream, pouring straight into his ear canal!

It felt like a needle was piercing his eardrum from the inside out. The sharp pain made his vision go black, and he arched his body, clutching his ears tightly with both hands as he staggered back several steps.

My ears were ringing. All other sounds disappeared, leaving only that agonizing tinnitus.

He gasped for breath, squatting on the ground, his scalp tingling in waves. As the pain slowly subsided, he looked up at the doll again; it remained in the same pose, motionless and quiet.

"Damn it! How come there's a sonic trap?!"

Zhang Ying stood up and stopped approaching the puppet. He turned around and walked through the remaining dance studios one by one, carefully examining each puppet.

The second one is in a different pose than the first, but the joints twisted in the opposite direction are exactly the same. The third one is the same, and the fourth one is the same.

After visiting all eight dance studios, he leaned against the wall of the middle studio, gently pressed the back of his head against the cool mirror, and closed his eyes.

Aside from their different poses, these ballet dolls are almost identical.

He opened his eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling above him.

Where is the exit? How long will we be stuck here? How can we get out of this predicament?

After a moment of contemplation, Zhang Ying gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, straightened up, and turned his gaze to the puppets.

Nine dance studios, eight puppets, no difference except for their poses. The only thing that can be called a "threat" is the sonic trap.

He stared at the ballet dress on the nearest doll.

Singing and screaming. This made him think of a possibility.

In the simulator, he pushed open the door to the vocal studio for the first time, just as Li Ziqing was about to leave. She was in the vocal studio because she wanted to practice singing alone. Zhang Ying's intrusion disrupted Li Ziqing's solitude, so she decided to leave.

Now, these puppets emit soft singing, enticing people to approach and listen, but screaming and driving them away if they get too close. The two seem unrelated, yet they share a common structure:

Once you try to get close and listen, you're forced to leave.

The choices made in the simulator may reflect the current situation.

The correct answer is to praise her singing, but now we face another dilemma. There are eight puppets in total. Who should we praise and who shouldn't we praise? Or rather, who should we praise first and who should we praise later?

Zhang Ying pinched his chin, observing the eight puppets, a bead of cold sweat trickling down his forehead.

"I don't expect me to listen to every single one of them! My ears will be deafened!" Zhang Ying muttered to himself.

He sighed. There was no better way than this. It seemed he had no choice but to risk his ears and try to out-react these sonic traps.