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

"What went wrong..."

"That's right! It's the action! I didn't pounce on those fleeting red shadows like they did."

"Could this be one of the rules?"

Owen's brain raced, and in the midst of the crisis, he quickly came to a conclusion.

At this moment, the clouds in the sky became thick again.

The bright sunlight that pierced through the clouds suddenly disappeared, and the surrounding light dimmed again.

One by one, the black umbrella monsters surrounding Orn sank into the ground and disappeared.

Owen swallowed hard, not moving immediately, but waiting a minute. Only after finding nothing unusual around him did he breathe a sigh of relief.

That was absolutely terrifying!

Surrounded by so many monsters of unknown strength, he had no confidence in being able to calmly deal with them or escape.

Owen dared not leave the spot or close his umbrella, silently waiting for his emotions to completely calm down, while observing whether there were any new anomalies in the surrounding environment.

Just then, he suddenly heard footsteps approaching.

Owen's heart tightened, and he tensed up to look ahead... He saw Fan Xiao, with a black umbrella tucked into his waistband, slowly walking towards him.

Whew… Owen was completely relieved and took the initiative to approach, saying, “I just encountered a lot of monsters with black umbrellas! Buck and Monroe were killed by these monsters! They… they seemed to have been torn apart and eaten.”

Upon hearing this, Fan Xiao suddenly grinned and said, "Yes, the meat is quite delicious."

"..."

Owen's expression tightened, and he quickly took several steps back.

"With your guts, you were showing off your superiority everywhere before?" Fan Xiao chuckled. "Put your umbrella away. Nobody else is using an umbrella, but you are... It's very dangerous to be treated specially here."

"...Are you really me?" Owen began to have doubts.

"Yes, I can prove it to you."

As Fan Xiao spoke, he glanced at the back of Owen's right hand.

*Thud*—The skin on the back of Owen's right hand split open, revealing a mouth that opened, showing sharp teeth and a scarlet tongue, and a hoarse voice said, "It's me."

"..." Owen suppressed the urge to curse and asked, "Did you see what happened on my side just now?"

“I saw it,” Fan Xiao said with a sigh. “I said before that all the villagers here were ghosts, but that was mostly a joke. I didn’t expect they really were.”

"You think those monsters are the villagers?" Owen asked.

Isn't the answer obvious?

Fan Xiao said, "First, there's the black umbrella. Second, when those monsters pounced on those three red figures, you didn't pounce with them, so you were attacked. It was only the timely change in weather that saved your life."

"You didn't follow the rules that the villagers follow, so you encountered danger—using this conclusion as a counter-intuition, what else do you think those monsters could be besides villagers?"

Chapter 537 Don't reveal the identity of the living.

After concluding that the villagers were monsters, Fan Xiao immediately activated his psionic energy to notify the players whose "Heavenly Eye" he had activated to begin gathering.

Although the three of them did not have "heavenly eyes" on their foreheads, he had left flesh and blood on their bodies to facilitate communication.

Making flesh grow mouths and speak to issue notifications is simple... it just takes a bit of sanity.

The area of ​​Red Village is not very large, and it is within the range of his psionic interference.

Soon, the nine surviving players gathered together.

Owen glanced at the others, his face somewhat gloomy.

Why is it only their side that has problems... Are they really that unlucky?

“Once the weather clears up, the villagers will use umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun!” You Guo said immediately. “We’d better use umbrellas too, otherwise… we might run into danger!”

"Strange red figures will appear after the weather clears up. I wonder if you've seen them?"

Xiao Tian, ​​who was next to You Guo, pushed up his glasses and added, "I saw it from my side. I also saw the nearby villagers rushing towards the red figure."

"Looks like you went too," Fan Xiao said.

"How did you know?" Xiao Tian was taken aback.

After a moment's thought, he immediately understood—there were originally eleven of them, but now only nine had gathered together… The two missing players had most likely died because they hadn't managed to capture Hongying.

Fan Xiao seemed to have seen through Xiao Tian's thoughts and immediately glanced at Owen.

Owen understood and solemnly recounted what had happened.

After he finished speaking, he concluded: "The villagers are monsters! We have discovered two rules here."

"First rule: When the weather clears up and the sun comes out, you must open an umbrella immediately. Each person should have their own umbrella, and two people must never share one!"

"Secondly, upon seeing the red shadow, you must pounce and attack; you cannot remain idle."

"Breaking either of these two rules will result in being attacked and devoured by the monstrous villagers. The villagers are very strong! We cannot withstand their onslaught."

"It was truly impossible to guard against!" Canglang said with lingering fear, "If we hadn't stolen the Black Umbrella in time, we probably would have been wiped out!"

"Not really."

Fan Xiao said, "If you can't beat them, can't you just run away? If you're strong enough, you might even be able to turn the tables. Once the sunlight disappears, the villagers will return to normal, so there's no need to worry about a war of attrition. Besides..."

He paused for a moment and then said, "I have some new ideas about using umbrellas. Would you like to hear them?"

Upon hearing this, everyone perked up their ears and entered a state of most attentive listening.

Now, who would dare to ignore Fan Xiao's words?

Facing everyone's gaze, Fan Xiao smiled and said, "The intelligence fee is 5 game coins."

"..."

"Of course, considering that we've been through thick and thin together, I'll do you a favor this time and offer it to you for free."

After some manipulation, Fan Xiao finally said, "We are human, the villagers are ghosts."

"..." Canglang: "This is your intelligence worth 5? We already know that!"

"Sigh, I really should have charged you an 'IQ tax' this time! Couldn't you have made the connection yourself?"

Fan Xiao explained, "When the sun comes out, the shadow created by our open black umbrella will, in a way that defies common sense, completely cover our shadows."

"The anomaly just now occurred at 4:49 PM. At that time, a person's shadow would be very long in the sunlight. How could an umbrella possibly provide shade? Something is definitely amiss!"

He concluded, "On the surface, we followed the rule of 'using an umbrella on a sunny day' and were safe."

"Actually... we were hiding our shadows. We disguised ourselves as villagers, which is why we weren't attacked. The villagers most likely don't have shadows, but we do. Our identities are different from those of the villagers in Red Village."

"It's now basically confirmed that when players are in Red Village on a cloudy day, their shadows will be blocked by the dungeon rules. This is not a bad thing, but a kind of protection. Once the sun comes out, we will lose this protection, and the reappearance of our shadows will expose our identity as living people."

"If we can't escape, we'll be eaten by the villagers. During this time, only the black umbrella can help us disguise ourselves and gain new protection."

It's important to understand that the villagers are ghosts and the players are living people.

Because this can be used as a central point to develop many other related conjectures, and thus deduce a lot of information.

"I have a question."

Xiao Tian asked, "Do the villagers know they don't have shadows? If they do... they recognized us as outsiders, but they didn't attack us immediately. Why?"

"Perhaps the villagers who transformed into monsters after the sun came out weren't acting of their own volition?" Owen speculated. "Their monster form shouldn't be confused with their ordinary selves?"

"The likelihood is high."

Fan Xiao affirmed this inference, but cautioned, "The villagers of Hongcun are not monsters, but ghosts. Monsters are a broad category, while ghosts are a more specific one; they should not be confused."

"We can't really call them ghosts, can we?" Canglang said. "Based on their current behavior, we can only categorize them as 'monsters with powerful abilities.' Besides... what's the point of getting hung up on whether they're monsters or ghosts?"

"Yes, it is of great significance."

Fan Xiao replied, "Afraid of the sun, no shadow... Ghosts—this identity has a hidden meaning. The identity of the villagers of Red Village is very important to us."

"For example... once we've determined that the villagers are ghosts, we can start making new connections—besides being afraid of the sun and not having shadows, what other characteristics do ghosts have? Based on these characteristics, we can proactively guess the rules we need to follow."

"The core of following the rules is—don't reveal your identity as a living person."

"Uh...it seems that's true."

The wolf's eyes widened as it understood the logic behind it.

The rules of Red Village are not really rules, but rather behavioral patterns exhibited by ghosts and monsters.

Players must actively conform to these behavioral patterns in order to conceal their identity as living people, avoid being discovered, and prevent being devoured.

However, it would be too passive to learn about these behavioral patterns simply through observation.

If you don't react in time, you'll be surrounded and attacked.

If you can't escape, you'll become food... She had indeed heard rumors and stories about ghosts eating people, and this characteristic matched up.

In short, this challenge was extremely difficult and dangerous!

If we can actively guess and anticipate the behavior patterns of ghosts and monsters... knowing in advance how to move around safely will naturally put our minds at ease.

The others also realized this, and their eyes became slightly excited.

"In addition, the information that 'the villagers are ghosts' can be extended to deduce a piece of information that is very important to us."

Fan Xiao didn't hesitate to share his guesses, continuing, "The third game hint—perhaps death is a new path to survival—how do you interpret this statement?"

"die……"

You Guo recalled the prompt and murmured, "The death here definitely doesn't refer to actual death. When you die, you lose everything, even your player identity... Uh, could it be referring to identity? It seems like this kind of trick is often used in dungeons."

Having made a guess, he quickly asked Fan Xiao, "Could it be that the game is hinting that we should obtain the identity of the 'dead'?"

"Congratulations, you guessed right." Fan Xiao laughed, "Now the villagers are the ghosts, so who do you think the dead person is?"

"We need to obtain the villagers' identities!"

Owen also realized what was happening.

"But we're outsiders, how do we obtain villager status?" You Guo sighed. "That's the real problem... Uh, wait, Brother Fan, do you have a solution?"

"I don't have a method, but I do have some guesses."

Now that Fan Xiao has brought up this topic, he will no longer play the role of a riddle solver.

He said, "We've come up with two rules, one of which is that if you see a red shadow, you must launch an attack."

"Why do we have to attack? Have you ever thought about the answer to this question?"

"The monster will attack those of us whose shadows are exposed, because those with shadows are living people, and the monster will also attack the red shadow..."

"By taking all these phenomena into account, we can come to the conclusion that perhaps the red shadows we see are living people, just like us!"

"You mean... those red figures are another group of players?" You Guo asked.

If all the villagers are ghosts, then the only living people are the players who disappeared on the bus.

"Don't forget that besides Red Village, there's also White Village in this instance," Fan Xiao reminded them. "We previously guessed that White Village was holding a funeral. If we use that conclusion to deduce that the villagers of White Village are living people, then we can conclude that the dead can't hold funerals, can they?"

"Besides the players, are the people of White Village also living people...?" You Guo said in a complicated tone, "The living are holding funerals, and the dead are celebrating weddings, this is really..."

Fan Xiao continued, "I estimate that those players who enter White Village will also need to obtain the identities of the dead in some way."

"For example... if there's a funeral in Baicun, hey, all you have to do is lie in the coffin and pretend to be dead, right?"

"This is way too easy!" Canglang complained. "We need to find out the villagers' identities first, and they can just pretend to be dead? That's so unfair!"

“The action itself is simple; what’s complex is the meaning behind it.” Fan Xiao suddenly looked at Ou En and asked, “Do you remember what I told you before we entered Red Village?”

“Uh…” Owen said respectfully, “Which sentence are you referring to? I have written down everything you have said.”

"..."

"Simp's Steamed Goose Heart..." Fan Xiao said, "When I told you back then that Red Village was having a wedding and White Village was having a funeral, didn't you think it was too much of a coincidence? Maybe Red Village was having a ghost marriage, and the person they were going to marry was a dead person from White Village."

"..." Owen asked in surprise, "You mean... we have to marry the dead in place of the villagers of Red Village?"

“The possibility is very high.” Fan Xiao nodded: “The players in White Village are pretending to be dead, while the players in Red Village are going to marry dead people… If we take the initiative to participate in the ghost marriage and get married in place of the villagers of Red Village, we might be able to obtain the identity of a villager.”

"How could the people of Red Village possibly let us get married?" Canglang asked suspiciously. "It wouldn't benefit them at all, would it?"

"That depends on the ghost marriage itself, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing for them."

Fan Xiao warned, "Don't forget there's still the hidden bomb of the Ghost Queen. According to the villagers, the Ghost Queen isn't just a legend; she really exists."