Infinite Weird Game

Legend has it that people walk on the human path, while ghosts walk on the ghost path.

During the day, living people walk between the sky, earth, mountains and rivers. Under the sun, all evil spirits retreat.

At night, after sunset, the yin energy becomes heavier, living people retreat, and all ghosts come out.

If one wants to compete with ghosts for time at night, one might as well light a lantern.

With light, you can see people, objects and roads clearly.

People hold lanterns to illuminate; ghosts also hold lanterns to guide the way.

The wandering ghosts who died in a foreign land must return home by following the call of their relatives and friends; the souls of those who died unjustly wandering in the human world must be locked into the underworld by the ghost messengers.

Some want to be reincarnated, some want to return to the soul, and they come and go on the ghost road, crowded together. They need to light a green lamp to guide them in front so as not to go wrong.

The green light that guides the way is what people often call a ghost fire, floating in the dark night and gone with the wind.

Travelers on their way at night must ask ghosts for help and be careful not to bump into ghosts, otherwise they will unknowingly take a detour and become disoriented.

A light that is too bright is a kind of "collision". If the light is brighter than the guiding will-o'-the-wisp fire, the confused ghosts will not be able to see the will-o'-the-wisp fire and will only see the light lit by the person.

They follow the light, not knowing where they are going. Once they realize they have taken the wrong path, they will be completely transformed into evil spirits that neither heaven nor earth will want.

Therefore, travelers carrying lanterns should not light the lanterns too brightly, and should also pay attention to the color of the candlelight at all times.

Whenever the flame suddenly turns green, it means that the ghost being chased has caught up.

The lamp was no longer a lamp for the living, but a green lamp to guide ghosts.

The person holding the lantern must deliver the ghost to its destination in time, otherwise he will be haunted by the evil ghost for the rest of his life.

……

Qi Si leaned on the bed, flipping through the "Record of the Underworld" which he had torn into pieces.

Lin Chen was sitting next to them, wrapped in a quilt. He leaned over and looked at the records curiously.

"No wonder the lanterns in our hands are so dim at night. Are they afraid that we might run into ghosts?"

He made a guess, then rejected it himself: "No, I remember that the lanterns were bright enough in the forest outside the town, and I could still see the words clearly with the light.

"It was only after we entered Yanghua Town that it became so dark that we couldn't even see the words clearly..."

After the player loads the dungeon, he appears in the mountains and forests outside Yanghua Town in the middle of the night. After entering the town, the time turns to daytime, and then quickly becomes dark in just a few hours.

Most humans need a comparison to understand the brightness of light. When natural light is constantly changing, it is difficult for ordinary people to judge the brightness of a lantern.

No one knows exactly when the light from the lantern becomes dim. At most, we know that the words can be clearly seen with the help of the lantern light outside the town, but not inside the town.

Qi Si lowered his eyes to look at the book in his hand and said calmly: "If I am not mistaken, the moment I entered the town, the lantern in my hand seemed to become lighter. I wonder if you have a similar feeling."

Lin Chen subconsciously began to recall the scene when he entered the town.

He didn't notice it at the time, but thinking about it now, he only had a vague impression, but he couldn't be sure whether the lantern had become lighter.

But since Qi Si said so, it should be correct, right?
Lin Chen looked at the lamp on the bedside table and said uncertainly: "I did have a strange feeling at the time, but I can't remember the details. This lantern... does seem to be a little different."

Qi Si nodded to show that he understood, with a serious expression and no comment.

Lin Chen shifted his gaze from the lantern to the window.

His thoughts touched a certain point, and he became uneasy: "Brother Qi, do you think that the townspeople of Yanghua Town have already turned into ghosts? Those outside... could they be their corpses?"

"Maybe." Qi Si turned his back to Lin Chen, "Let's go ask the townspeople tomorrow morning. Maybe we can find out some information."

"Yeah! But...what if they don't want to tell us?"

"So what? The core of our mission is the tiger known as 'Mountain God'. It has nothing to do with lanterns, right?"

Qi Si's voice was unclear and vague, as if it came from a dream.

Lin Chen saw him suddenly sit up straight, with his back to the wooden door and facing the window in a strange posture, so that his face and expression could not be seen, and only a back figure with red clothes and loose hair could be seen.

The young man picked up the lantern from the bedside table, held it in his arms, and from the sound he was removing the outermost layer of paper lampshade to take out the candle inside.

He was thin and had a narrow waist, but fortunately his robe was large and loose, just enough to block Lin Chen's sight.

Lin Chen sat on the bed near the door, staring at his back in confusion, unable to make any sense from beginning to end.

……

In the room on the right side of the second floor, Qiu Xin and Tang Yu had nothing to say to each other, and both were silent, like gourds with their mouths sawed off.

After searching the room and observing the environment, the two men went to bed and placed the lantern on the bedside table.

The light from the lantern maintained a barely bright brightness, casting a dark yellow filter over the entire room, with flickering shadows of varying shades.

Not only did it fail to dispel the darkness that easily brings fear, but it also gave rise to strange associations.

Qiu Xin opened the lamp cover and took out the milky white candle inside.

The candle flame, which looked orange outside, was exposed in the air and suddenly turned green, jumping tremblingly, like the legendary will-o'-the-wisp, the guiding candle in the underworld.

"There's something strange about this lamp. Be careful." Tang Yu glanced at the green candle flame and came to the obvious conclusion.

Qiu Xin ignored him and blew at the candle.

The candle flame trembled twice, with no sign of going out. When it stabilized, it burned higher than before.

Qiu Xin reached out to fan the wind again.

This time the flame didn't even tilt, standing firm in a unique way, as if it was in two dimensions with the players, unable to be disturbed or touched.

"Hey, don't touch the lantern!" Tang Yu saw that Qiu Xin was about to put his hand on the candle wick, so he quickly stopped him.

"We entered the town with a lantern. We should keep it just to be safe. Who knows if there's a rule that says 'if the lantern goes out, you can never leave'."

Qiu Xin glanced at him and said coldly: "The light is too bright, I can't sleep."

"My dear aunt, where did you get this young lady's temper?" Tang Yu was almost laughing out of anger, "We've already entered a weird game, just sleep or not sleep, why are you so particular about this and that?"

Even though Qiu Xin was criticized for a while, he was not angry at all.

She nodded slightly, finally let go of the candle and put the paper lampshade back on the candle.

As soon as the turquoise candle flame entered the lampshade, it turned back to orange-yellow. I don't know if it was a problem with the candle itself or a visual effect caused by the lampshade.

There were two beds placed horizontally in the room, one by the door and the other by the window.

Qiu Xin sat on the bed by the window with her back to Tang Yu. Her purple skirt and long hair concealed her movements and expression.

Outside the window was a towering pile of corpses, the highest points of which could be reached with a hand.

After entering the house, the two of them observed it and knew the situation outside.

Tang Yu was embarrassed to let a girl sleep too close to a dangerous place, so he planned to volunteer to sleep by the window.

Unexpectedly, Qiu Xinying said that the seat near the door was too noisy, so he sat on the bed by the window and refused to leave.

Tang Yu was not familiar with the man, so he did not hesitate to choose the bed near the door. Amid the "bang bang" sound of the night watchman, Qiu Xin lay down.

Tang Yu also lay down on the bed, turned over, turned his back to Qiu Xin, faced the wooden door, and covered himself with a quilt.

After a day of hard work and killing two NPCs, he was extremely tired. He closed his eyes as soon as he touched the bed, and his consciousness quickly fell into a coma.

Qiu Xin held his breath and listened to Tang Yu's breathing behind him return to normal before slowly opening his eyes.

In the upper right corner of her system interface, there was a small sign with a picture of a skeleton in blood-stained clothes.

[Your identity: Ghost]

[Identity Effect: ① When you are in the same room with a single person and the distance between you and the person is no more than three meters, you can choose to kill the person;
② At any place, you can kill a town resident by directly touching his shoulder;
③You must kill one person every day, otherwise your soul will be scattered and you will turn into Xiyi. 】

After listening to all the rules of the game and studying the structure of the room, Qiu Xin had already figured out a way to break the game.

Although the door of the mansion was locked, the windows could be easily opened, and she could easily climb out through the window and kill an unlucky townsman.

According to the scholar, other ghosts will not appear until midnight.

The townspeople should not be so vigilant before midnight, and quite a few people might still be wandering outside.

As long as she seizes this window of opportunity and takes action without delay, the crisis will be resolved.

Of course, Qiu Xin would not tell these details to anyone.

The bigger the dungeon, the more important it is to take advantage of the situation. Yanghua Town is large enough and has enough NPCs, which meets the basic conditions for taking advantage of the situation.

If a player reveals her identity to the townspeople and uses them to get rid of her, things will be bad.

Harmfulness is not allowed, and defensiveness is indispensable.

Qiu Xin would rather take the risk of going out at night than hurt other players; but she would never trust anyone and easily expose her identity.

"Tick, tick..."

The sound of the night watch rings softly in my ears, indicating the passage of time.

Qiu Xin took out an incense burner from the prop bar and placed it silently beside him.

【Name: Calming Incense】

[Type: props]

[Effect: Within the range of the aroma, players will not be easily awakened after falling asleep, except when encountering important plot nodes or death crises.]

[Note: Light a burner of incense and have a yellow millet dream. Only after a good rest can you have the energy to complete the task~]

This is one of the daily necessities strongly promoted on the second page of the mall. It is mainly used to help players with poor psychological quality maintain a good sleep in the dungeon. It can also, to a certain extent, cope with novice dungeons such as "Rose Manor" that require falling asleep at night.

Qiu Xin thought that he had a good mental quality and had no intention of entering the novice dungeon to fry fish, but he still bought this item.

A wide range calming effect, used to help randomly matched teammates fall asleep, which can save a lot of trouble.

Qiu Xin forced himself to keep his eyelids open and counted the seconds silently in his heart.

Guessing that Tang Yu was soundly asleep, she quietly sat up and got out of bed.

She picked up the lantern, walked to the window, and reached out to push the paper window.

"Tick, tick..."

The sound of the night watch was still ringing endlessly.

Qiu Xin smelled a strong smell of blood, and he didn't know what he stepped on, and his feet kept slipping.

She lowered her head and used the lantern to shine at the soles of her feet.

There seemed to be a pool of liquid on the wooden floor, which was sticky and looked like half-coagulated blood mixed with grease and minced meat.

Qiu Xin thought of the rotting corpse and suddenly felt like vomiting.

She covered her mouth and traced her eyes back to the source of the liquid.

There was a hole at the top of the window, and sticky blood was flowing in from outside, falling drop by drop onto the windowsill.

The pool of blood on the windowsill slid down the wall and accumulated on the floor, making a dripping sound.

"Tick, tick..."

The sound of dripping water was not from the night watch, but from blood dripping in from the window.

Qiu Xin picked up the lantern and shone it towards the window.

A blood-red eye was stuck through the broken window, looking into the room.

Half of the body was hanging upside down on the window, with bony claws clinging to the window frame, as if it would break in at any time...

……

"There is actually another saying about not lighting lanterns too brightly at night..."

In the middle room on the second floor, Qis turned another page of the "Record of the Underworld" in his hand, read the records on it, and told the story.

It is often said that "beauty is best seen under the lamp", because in the dim light of the night, it is often difficult to see the flaws on the face under the dim shadows, so everyone looks beautiful.

The same is true for “watching demons and monsters under the lamp”.

Hundreds of ghosts roam the night, humans and ghosts mingle together, shadowy figures can be seen in the dimly lit areas, and I wonder how many living people there are among them.

Looking around, it is common to occasionally catch a glimpse of a human face in a glass bead, an illusion in the mirror, or a ghost under the moon.

You hold up a dim lantern to illuminate the area, but you can't make out the details on the faces of people passing by, so you naturally can't spot the flaws of a ghost disguised as a human.

You talk to them, and they treat you as one of them, and the conversation passes by in a daze.

If the lantern is too bright, you will see clearly that some beings are not human, and they will also see clearly that you are not a ghost.

Being scared is a small matter, but if you disturb the ghosts and get entangled by them, things will be troublesome.

Qi Si closed the book, looked at Lin Chen and smiled: "I have read a story before. A scholar married a beautiful woman. The beautiful woman had a quirk. She would not go to bed until the lights were turned off at night, and she would not allow the scholar to light the lights during the night.

"One day, the scholar wanted to play a trick on his wife, so he lit the candle by the bed when he woke up at night. Unexpectedly, he saw his wife lying on the bed transformed into a man with a green face and fangs. The wife realized her identity was exposed, so she had no choice but to eat the scholar and rush to the next city to trick the next scholar."

Qis's face flickered in the light, half of it hidden by his long hair, his features soft and unreal.

Lin Chen listened to a lot of ghost stories and his whole body became a little stiff.

He swallowed and asked tentatively, "So... this lantern is so dim to protect us, so that we don't see things we shouldn't see?"

"I was just chatting with you, it's good that you've listened to me." Qi Si chuckled, and his laughter seemed sinister in the current atmosphere. "I don't know if the brightness of this lantern has anything to do with the copy. It may be a natural change..."

As he spoke, he lowered his head to glance at his pocket watch, and when he looked up again, his brows relaxed: "Lin Chen, it's almost time, it's time to go to bed."

Lin Chen looked at the young man in front of him in confusion, and felt that his expression was full of ill intentions.

The next second, Qi Si clicked the key of the bracelet and a small cone appeared. He smiled sincerely, "If you can't sleep, I might be able to help you." (End of this chapter)