Lucky billion players, you've never seen one before / I can accumulate my own luck

"So the way to please them is to not lie or cheat, and to beat up the fraudsters for them when you encounter them."

“We tried both methods yesterday, but when night fell, Fan Xiao and I did not receive any preferential treatment from the ghost townspeople; they still attacked us.”

At this point, he held up four fingers: "There are four possibilities for this situation to occur."

"First, we haven't built up enough goodwill; we need to continue to cultivate it."

"Secondly, the goodwill we accumulate will only take effect on the day of the memorial service; it will be ineffective at other times."

Third, we've been using the wrong methods to build goodwill.

"Fourth, the idea of ​​accumulating goodwill was wrong from the start; there is no such rule at all."

"The possibility of error is very small. After all, our guesses so far have been verified one by one, and our logical framework is sound."

Fan Xiao offered his speculation: "I guess... the reason we were attacked last night was because we hadn't accumulated enough goodwill. In this instance, goodwill can probably be calculated into a value, and once the value reaches the target, the Ghost Town residents will be restricted from attacking us."

"Don't lie, beat up the fraudsters who got caught up in the game—building goodwill through these two methods must be very slow and require time to build up."

"If we want to gain their favor in one go, I think we'll have to take drastic measures. For example... we can hunt down the 'trickster monsters' in this instance. After all, they are hostile to the Ghost Town residents, and killing them is equivalent to avenging the Ghost Town residents."

At this point, he glanced at Li Xian, Lu Baizhi, and Song Qingshan.

All three of them have already killed the "deceitful monster," especially Li Xian and Lu Baizhi, who have killed quite a few. Perhaps they have accumulated a lot of goodwill and will no longer be attacked by the Ghost Town residents.

Speaking of which... Li Xian killed three "deceitful monsters" yesterday afternoon, and then last night, the three ghosts from Xiao Chi's family attacked him first, not Li Xian. Could this be the reason?

Killing three isn't enough to completely avoid being attacked... I'm afraid I'll have to kill even more.

"Kill the 'liar monster'?"

Mercury asked doubtfully, "They are all spirits. Without mental attack abilities, there's no way to deal with them. Doesn't that mean players without the relevant talents are doomed after the Spirit Festival? I feel this dungeon design is somewhat unreasonable."

"You think it's unreasonable because you haven't found the right way to attack them."

Fan Xiao said, "This correct method is exactly related to our first mission condition, 'completing a sacrificial ritual,' and it's also exactly the direction we're exploring today."

"Oh?" Mercury asked curiously, "Judging from your tone... you've found a way?"

"This is just speculation and remains to be verified."

Fan Xiao's words drew everyone's attention.

Meeting their gazes, he smiled slightly and said, "Wanting revenge, wanting to kill the fraudsters, isn't just the wish of the Ghost Town residents. The remaining living townspeople certainly want to kill those fraudsters who harmed their families as well."

"It just so happens that all the living residents of the town have placed memorial tablets in their homes for worship."

"So I guess that the so-called completion of the sacrificial ceremony refers to catching the fraudster, bringing him to the home of a living villager, and killing him as a sacrifice in front of the ancestral tablet."

"Isn't this too easy?" Du Ruo reminded him, "Even if we can't use any items now, those scammers who got caught up in the dungeon are just ordinary people who can't fight back against us players at all. We can catch them, kill them, and sacrifice them with almost no effort."

"This is not an easy task to do."

Li Xian then spoke up, saying, "First, you need to investigate the background framework of the entire instance and deduce this method."

"Secondly, to deduce the background framework, you need time to gather intelligence. The longer it takes... how many of those ordinary people involved do you think will still be alive after one night?"

"Finally, you have to compete with other players who have the same idea for the few surviving ordinary people."

"The most crucial point..."

At this point, he paused.

Seeing that everyone's attention was focused, he concluded, "Who said that fraudsters are just ordinary people who get caught up in this? Fan Xiao and I discussed this yesterday. There is another group of fraudsters in this copy, and they are more likely to be our targets."

"Another group of scammers... are 'scam monsters'!"

Du Ruo immediately realized what was going on and said with a headache, "It is indeed more likely to be them, and it makes more sense. However, these guys are all spirits. If players don't have a talent with mental attack attributes, they can't even attack them. How are we supposed to capture them?"

"Didn't I just say that we need to find the right way? That's what we're going to do today."

Fan Xiao said, "Once we find the right method, we can not only touch and capture them, sacrifice them to complete the ritual, but we can also continuously kill them to accumulate the goodwill of the ghost townspeople."

"As for what the right approach is... let's start by thinking about it from a realistic perspective."

"For example... what are scammers most afraid of? Or... what kind of person has the authority to arrest and deal with scammers?"

"Hmm... judicial personnel? Police?"

Lu Baizhi offered her own guess.

“You’re right,” Fan Xiao nodded. “What we need to do now is acquire this identity. And the method to acquire it…”

Facing the gaze of the crowd, he smiled and said mysteriously, "When faced with a door that can't be opened, put a lock on it, find the key, and open it. It sounds absurd, but it's a way of thinking about solving problems."

“Ha…” Mercury pointed to the living room door: “Riddler, get out!”

"Being impatient is no good, Xiao Mo."

Fan Xiao maintained his smile and said, "In the end, the judiciary is not an objective entity, but rather something that comes from the public's recognition and the granting of rights. The key lies with the public."

"That's right. Our job today is to visit more homes of living townspeople, spread lies, and make them think that we are plainclothes law enforcement officers from outside the town, here to catch swindlers."

Li Xian echoed Fan Xiao, saying, "It's currently unknown how many families we need to visit to successfully obtain police status; we can keep trying."

"Spreading lies?" Mercury asked worriedly. "Aren't you sure lying won't hurt your reputation?"

"That depends on the purpose of lying."

Li Xian replied, "We spread lies to help the townspeople take revenge and fulfill their wishes. Such lies should be fine, since the ghosts here are intelligent and can distinguish between good and evil."

"Of course, besides the 'scam monster,' ordinary fraudsters who get caught up in the dungeon could also be our targets."

"It's a bit arbitrary to try to figure out which one it is based on guesswork. Let's just try both and do both well."

"Um... after we get the police identity, how do we find those 'con artist monsters'?"

Lu Baizhi voiced her doubts.

“Let’s wander around town and try our luck,” Li Xian replied. “The ‘deceitful monster’s’ attacks are unpredictable, so this is the only clumsy way we can do it.”

"Don't worry, the simple method should work."

Fan Xiao comforted his "little girlfriend," saying, "Those 'deceitful monsters' may be able to deceive people and seem to be highly intelligent, but when they attack us, they are just like irrational monsters. When they are at a disadvantage, they don't even know how to run away. This is quite different from the people of Ghost Town."

"So, I guess they are either intelligent in appearance but are actually just simple monsters; or... they are constrained by the dungeon rules and have no choice but to attack us frantically."

"If we spend a lot of time wandering around outside, there's a pretty good chance they'll come looking for us."

“No wonder you and the captain dared to discuss the plan so unguarded,” Mercury sighed. “So it doesn’t matter if the intelligence is leaked to them…”

"That's it."

Fan Xiao smiled and said, "This is the plan for achieving the first mission condition. As for the second one, 'survive for seven days,' I won't go into details about that. Next is the third mission condition—helping a deceased person achieve a true return."

“The deceased were the residents of Ghost Town. Li Xian and I guessed that as long as we brought back the remains of the residents of Ghost Town, we would have helped them achieve their true return.”

"Therefore... we may have to dig up the graves to take a look, but... I personally think the chances of their remains being in the graves are quite small, if not almost there."

"Where should we look for it?" Mercury asked.

"Don't forget the deceased's other identity—a victim who died in Wa City after being deceived."

Li Xian said, "The Sacrifice Town can be considered a 'hometown' created for them in the game, but since they died in a foreign land, their remains would naturally not be in the town."

“Fan Xiao and I guessed that the spirits of the dead should return from where they came on the day of the memorial ceremony, so their remains should be there. Therefore, to complete the third task, we can only wait until the day of the memorial ceremony.”

"Of course, our goal is not to get a high score and pass the level, but to get out of here as soon as possible. We can ignore the third task for now and try to complete the sacrificial ritual first."

Next, Li Xian added details to the specific plan.

After Cao Shuai and the other two had recovered, Li Xian said, "Let's split up and get to work. Remember, we only have one day, so we must make the most of every second."

No one objected to the arrangement of splitting up.

The danger during the day is the "scam monster," and the solution is to hide in a house; if done properly, there is basically no danger.

To improve efficiency, it is necessary to split up and work separately.

Of course, none of the eight people forgot that there were other players in this instance, especially the leader of the "Black Serpent" organization, who was also there, posing a hidden threat.

To avoid any problems, the group of eight split into two groups and began their operation.

Chapter 358 The Encirclement and Assassination Plan

For safety reasons, Li Xian and Lu Baizhi, who possess the ability to inflict damage on spirits, each led a team.

Fan Xiao and Song Qingshan joined Li Xian's team, and Li Xian also called on Mercury. The four of them left the house and began visiting nearby households.

When choosing target families, Mercury suggested starting with the townspeople, but Fan Xiao and Li Xian shook their heads, showing a very casual attitude in their selection.

The two of them basically went to whichever house they saw, without any regard for the local customs or the distinction between ghost townspeople and living townspeople.

Mercury initially thought the success rate of this approach would be low, but to his surprise, no matter which house the four of them went to, as soon as they finished recounting the fabricated identities of law enforcement officers, the townspeople would choose to believe them directly.

Even the families of the residents of Ghost Town are no exception.

After repeating this several times, Mercury finally understood.

It wasn't that the four of them were particularly clever in their deception, nor that the townspeople of Jiling Town were particularly naive.

This situation most likely occurs because the townspeople are constrained by the instance rules and are forced to react in a similar way when faced with certain actions.

The specific behavior here is the "law enforcement scam".

In other words, spreading the lie about one's identity is just a formality.

Then, using this as leverage, one can unlock the authority to capture the "scam monster."

Whether the townspeople believed them or not was irrelevant.

The important point is that the act of impersonating law enforcement officers is itself a condition for obtaining authority.

This is a hidden copy rule.

During the period of spreading lies, because they were mostly staying in houses and rarely outside, Fan Xiao and his companions were not targeted by the "liar monster" and did not encounter any danger along the way.

Occasionally, they would run into other players, but they would keep to themselves and not even exchange greetings.

When they encountered players who wanted to approach them to exchange information, Fan Xiao and his companions immediately showed hostility and forced the other party to retreat.

Wa City is not a good place. Most of the Wa City players who get involved are involved with fraud gangs, and there are very few of them with good character.

Even if they exist, it has nothing to do with them.

They now possess a wealth of crucial intelligence, and whether they can pass the test remains to be seen. They certainly won't do charity by exchanging intelligence... or donating it away.

Moreover, they chose to remain cautious because carelessly leaking information could cause unforeseen circumstances.

To ensure a high success rate in obtaining identities, the four spent an entire morning visiting various places.

After most of the townspeople's chimneys were billowing smoke, the four of them returned to the home where Cao Shuai and his two companions had stayed the previous night.

Outside the gate of the house, Fan Xiao discovered that Lu Baizhi and Du Ruo had already returned before them and were waiting for them outside.

After they regrouped, Du Ruo from Lu Baizhi's team said, "We marked the locations of some ordinary people, but we haven't brought them here yet. If it turns out that they need to be used for sacrifice, we can go to the corresponding locations to capture them at any time."

“Yes, I understand.” Fan Xiao nodded. “It’s the same on our side.”

Although the ordinary people involved in this instance are all fraudsters, it is still somewhat cruel to say that they are arbitrarily tied up and killed as sacrifices. This kind of deliberate harm is not in line with the style of these model young people under the red flag.

Of course, when it comes down to it, they won't hesitate.

However, it's more likely that the "deceptive monster" is the real target, while capturing ordinary people seems like competing with the townspeople who want revenge, which might actually damage their image.

Therefore, we should be conservative in our approach before verifying our speculations.

"correct."

Du Ruo continued, "We found many corpses outside, all of them mutilated."

"Some people's entire bodies were twisted into pretzels, all their bones were shattered and mixed with twisted flesh and blood, and the expressions left on their faces were extremely painful and desperate."

"Some people were disemboweled, their stomachs were emptied, and their bodies were hung from trees with their own intestines."

"Some people had their heads ripped off along with their spines and hung in conspicuous places in town..."

He paused for a moment, then continued, "These are the ones that are relatively intact. As for the incomplete ones... we have seen severed limbs, crushed internal organs, half-eaten heads, chewed fingers, and so on in many corners, alleys, piles of weeds, and garbage heaps."

“We encountered the same thing here,” Fan Xiao laughed. “It seems the people of Ghost Town had quite a few tricks up their sleeves last night.”

"You can still laugh about this?" Du Ruo said speechlessly, "If we had been careless last night, we would have become part of these corpses. The methods of these ghost townspeople... show absolutely no humanity or empathy. Although they have human intelligence, their behavior... is no different from that of real ghosts."

“Most of those who died were fraudsters,” Fan Xiao said in a somewhat nonchalant tone. “The people of Ghost Town have cleaned up a bunch of scourges in the real world, which is a good thing.”

“The house could change shape, and these bodies could have been hidden.”