Infinite Weird Game

The sky over Yanghua Town was as dark as the interior of a tomb, and no outline of the mansion could be seen in the surroundings.

Fortunately, most of the main roads in the town run east-west, so as long as you go straight west, you will not get lost.

Qi Si let Tang Yu stand in front of him and walked behind him, holding the lantern.

The three players used the lanterns to illuminate the way and then headed forward in the chosen direction.

In the silence, Tang Yu asked suddenly: "Do you think we will meet Qiu Xin when we go back?"

Although he and Qiu Xin had many verbal disagreements and knew that the girl was an accomplice, he still couldn't ignore the safety of his companions in the team dungeon.

The subtext of Qi Si's previous assertion is nothing more than that the scholar transformed into an old man will die at the hands of evil spirits, and the evil spirits are hatred.

Will there really be no problem for Qiu Xin to kill the strange NPC under the coercion of the rules when faced with an obviously strange situation?
"No." Qi Si shook his head, "Ever since she left through the window last night, she knew that her identity as a 'ghost' would be exposed in front of us, and she was ready to be hostile to us.

"Even if this is a team instance, as individuals who don't trust us, she can't be sure that we will give up the side quest for the sake of unity, and she certainly won't dare to gamble her life on our idea."

Since becoming the president, Lin Chen has been consciously studying game theory, and now he can easily understand Qis's logic.

In the prisoner's dilemma, although cooperation can obviously bring the greatest benefits, due to the mutual distrust between individuals, both sides end up suffering losses.

Trust has always been the key to cooperation and the answer to solving difficult problems, but it can never be the common choice of the human group.

It's like the death spiral of army ants, repeating over and over again, leading to a final dead end.

Lin Chen was silent for a moment, frowned and asked: "If Qiu Xin doesn't return to the residence, is there any other place for her to live? Will she go to the east of the town and meet Teacher Luo and the others?"

Luo Haihua and his wife were in a deep sleep and could not be awakened by any noise from the outside world.

However, the minions have the ability to easily kill players...

If Qiu Xin and Luo Haihua and his wife encounter each other, the worst outcome will be that the human camp loses two members in vain, and the clues about Xiyi and Zhendong Mansion will be cut off.

Although Vengeance may not necessarily be a massacre-type player who kills everyone on sight, what if there is not enough time to find prey and you have to kill someone randomly as an emergency measure?

Human nature will never be able to withstand the test of crisis.

Tang Yu and Lin Chen thought of the same thing and slapped their thighs, "Fuck! What kind of team dungeon is this? It's divided into camps, and there's a restriction that you have to kill one person every day. It should just be called a confrontation dungeon!"

He complained and continued, "Although I don't know if Mr. Luo and the others can see it, but when we return to the residence, we should remember to leave messages on those papers to remind them to be careful."

Trust is difficult to build, but the seeds of doubt are easy to sow.

Qi Si listened to the conversation between the two people beside him and knew that they had already developed a secret fear of the only obvious "accomplice" in the copy.

If there are casualties in the future, they will definitely suspect hatred first.

Some things should just be said briefly; any unnecessary discussion will inevitably appear to be calculating.

Qi Si changed the subject at the right time and smiled to comfort them: "The situation may not be as bad as you think. From the choice of Chou Xin on the first day, it is enough to infer that players with the identity of 'Ghost' will not be harmed by ghosts.

"If she wants to find a place to hide, she can just stay at any house or sleep in the open air. When she doesn't know the situation of Teacher Luo and the others, she doesn't have to go far away to the east of the town."

At this point, the young man lowered his eyes, changed his tone and said, "Also, I may understand why this instance is classified as 'Team Survival'.

"At night, ghosts come out. If a player with the identity of 'human' wants to go out to explore, he will inevitably be attacked by ghosts. In other words, the only players with the identity of 'ghost' can move freely at night and collect clues.

“If we want to completely crack the worldview, we can’t do without the help of hatred.”

There is some truth in what he said, and it may even be true.

Lin Chen's face was bitter: "But Qiu Xin is gone, what should we do if we can't find her?"

"What should we do? It's very simple..." Qi Si paused for a moment, still smiling, "We can completely give up cracking the world view and take the NE clearance route."

Lin Chen and Tang Yu: "..."

"Bang!"

"The first watch at the hour of Xu, the weather is dry, be careful with fire!"

Amid the sound of the night watchman's drum, the three of them walked in silence for a while. Suddenly, in the middle of the open road ahead, the figure of a little old lady in black clothes appeared.

She held the gong in one hand and the room key in the other, grinning at the players, "Dear guests, follow me back to the mansion."

The little old lady said the same lines as the old man on the first day, as if she was a machine with a fixed program, and every move she made was in line with the standard.

She dragged her human-shaped shadow under the light of the lantern, turned around tremblingly, and walked in front at a moderate pace to lead the way.

The players looked at each other and followed one after another.

The residence was not far ahead. The distance that originally seemed so far away was only a few steps away under the guidance of the old lady.

The two-story wooden building stands tall under the night sky, with orange lights leaking through the door and window frames, guiding returning travelers in the darkness.

"We've arrived at the residence. This is it."

The old lady stopped in front of the door and looked back at Tang Yu: "Young man, you have to stay in a room with someone tonight. You must be alive tomorrow morning so that we can be sure that you are not a ghost."

She had said this a while ago in the morning, so it was not surprising that she said it again now.

Tang Yu did not respond and glanced at Qi Si.

Although he didn't like some of Qis's behavior, the latter's puzzle-solving ability was obvious to all, and it wouldn't hurt to ask for his opinion at a critical moment.

Qi Si received Tang Yu's signal of inquiry and his eyes wandered between the little old lady and the mansion behind him.

Players already know that the dead old man is a scarecrow, and they can infer that the other townspeople are scarecrows.

But a single piece of evidence is not enough to prove anything. We have to increase the sample size and do more experiments to be safe.

In other words, it is the only way to turn uncertain speculation into certainty.

Tang Yu understood, drew the sword from his waist, and slashed the old woman's neck.

With a "sha" sound, the old woman's head flew out, and the scarlet blood splashed in the air in an arc, which looked extremely realistic at first glance.

The gong fell with a loud bang, the key chain fell to the ground with a clatter, and the headless body fell heavily to the ground. Black smoke rose from the chest and went into the small wooden house on the far left of the mansion.

Tang Yu did not hesitate. He turned his wrist and put the knife behind his back, then trotted to the wooden house following the black smoke.

Sure enough, the next second, the door of the wooden house opened from the inside. In the house where only an oil lamp was lit, a little old lady in good health walked out from the dim light, holding a key chain.

"Dear outsiders, please share the rooms with me. If they don't accept you, I will. If I still don't accept you, you will end up in the stomach of the mountain god..." The old lady muttered the familiar words faintly, her cloudy and yellow eyes staring at Tang Yu, her toothless mouth smiling kindly, which added a bit of weirdness to the silent night and made people feel creepy.

Tang Yu was frightened by her gaze and said unhappily, "Don't bother with that. Master Meng invited us here to kill that so-called Mountain God."

The old lady laughed and said, "You are just bragging, young man. The mountain god is neither a demon nor a ghost. None of us can defeat or kill him. With a body like yours, you can't move if he yells at you."

"Since we can't be killed by anyone, then why did you, Master Meng, bring us here? To give your mountain god a treat?"

"It's hard to explain Mr. Meng's thoughts. You can ask him in person. He won't harm you."

"I... you f*cking..."

While Tang Yu was arguing with the old lady, Qi Si directly pulled Lin Chen around the player and the NPC and walked towards the small wooden house behind the old lady.

The scene of last night was still vivid in the mind. The old man who was supposed to be dead walked out of the wooden house intact. After being killed again, black smoke rose from his blood. Soon he reappeared in front of the players in human form.

The old lady's condition was exactly the same as the old man's. She also emitted black smoke after her death, and also reappeared from the wooden house alive and kicking...

The wooden house in front of you is most likely the refresh point of the NPCs in the mansion.

"Hey, you two young men, stop running around!"

The old lady noticed the movements of Qi Si and Lin Chen, and quickly turned around and reached out to pull their sleeves.

Tang Yu took a step sideways in tacit understanding and stood in front of her.

Due to this delay, Qi Si had already stepped into the wooden house, and Lin Chen also stepped in.

The furnishings in the wooden house were shabby and simple, with a flickering candlelight on the low wooden table.

There was a narrow bed in the corner, which looked like a little old lady's shelter, but the bedding was so flat that it seemed as if no one had ever slept on it.

The gray sheets hung down from the edge of the bed, dragging on the ground like a door curtain, thickly blocking out the view beneath the bed.

Qi Si walked to the bed, reached out to lift the sheets, and shone the lantern downwards to dispel the shadows under the bed.

The ground beneath the bed was densely packed with life-size scarecrows, which at first glance looked like human corpses piled up in a mass grave.

Each scarecrow is wearing a black straw raincoat, with his head covered with white powder. One side of the face is drawn with blush to create a smiling face, while the other side is expressionless.

It turned out to be the old man's body that was inserted into the bamboo forest and turned into a strange scarecrow!
The situation is very clear. Once the townspeople's bodies are destroyed by swords, their souls will return to the place where the scarecrow is kept and choose a new scarecrow to possess.

As long as there are scarecrows left, the townspeople will not be truly killed, and it is like eternal life in a sense.

Qi Si put down the bed sheet and walked straight out of the cabin.

The old lady was still being held back by Tang Yu. No matter which way she went, Tang Yu would quickly block her way with his sword.

Seeing Qi Si coming out, Tang Yu put away his knife and moved aside.

The little old lady walked into the house with a cane, staggering with each step. She lowered her head and looked around, as if she wanted to check whether the players had damaged anything inside.

She turned her back to the door, reached out her hand and trembled as she touched the table and bed, and reminded the players conscientiously: "Dear guests, remember, you must return to the room before midnight, I will help you lock the door.

"And the young man in black, you must choose someone to share a room with you..."

Tang Yu, dressed in black, had a gloomy face. He slammed the wooden door, shutting the old lady's voice inside the room.

Lin Chen has been looking down at the ground ever since he came out of the room.

At this moment, he suddenly pointed to a certain place with a strange look on his face: "Brother Lin, Brother Tang, look, the body has changed."

Qi Si and Tang Yu looked in the direction he pointed.

On the ground in a corner of the wooden house, the body of the old woman, which was originally broken into two pieces and bleeding, was fading at a speed visible to the naked eye, gradually turning the withered yellow of dry grass leaves.

The bright red blood dried and charred before his eyes, dispersing into grains of ash in a few seconds. The pale body shrank like a deflated balloon, turning into a bundle of straw wrapped in black clothes.

After the players confirmed the true identity of the old lady, the false illusion dissipated like a layer of misty smoke, revealing the real face underneath.

Previously, the players only thought that the townspeople were ghosts, unaware of it, and trapped in a maze; now looking back, aren’t the players the same?
Just like the townspeople don’t know that they are ghosts, so they survive like humans; the players don’t know in advance that the townspeople are scarecrows, so everything they see and recognize are illusions of human form.

A leaf blocks one's vision, and as one drifts in the world of mortals, who can easily see through it?

It was still early at 12 o'clock, and the three of them sat down in the hall on the first floor of the mansion, around a table with a box of Qingming dumplings on it.

"I just feel that Meng Fang has bad intentions." Tang Yu held a Qingming dumpling in his hand and kneaded it intermittently, "That tiger monster is a demon ghost. Being a monster alone is hard enough to deal with, and with a ghost, God knows what it is.

"So many NPCs can't deal with the tiger monster, and they still say 'can't beat it, can't kill it'. Isn't it ridiculous to ask us to fight the tiger?"

He stretched and flattened the Qingming dumpling, as if it was the incarnation of Meng Fang: "Moreover, in the thirty-six years since the emergence of the weird game, there have been only a handful of cases where players' martial arts were directly improved. Even for martial arts players, no matter how many self-defense props they have, most of them are used for self-protection.

"This is the official pool. No matter how powerful someone is, they can just kill a few marginal NPCs. I can only bully old men and women. This is the first time I've seen a player fight a weird one-on-one."

Tang Yu was quite self-aware and spoke in an angry tone.

Qi Si was not as indignant as Tang Yu.

So far, the number of NPCs killed by him directly or indirectly is not many, but it is not few either.

Moreover, after experiencing the mission of "killing Ms. Medina" in "Red Maple Leaf Boarding School", he was not caught off guard at the moment.

Judging from the experience of the "Red Maple Leaf Boarding School" copy, the so-called "killing the tiger monster" is most likely not something that players can do directly, but requires the help of certain mechanisms of the copy.

I just don't know what that mechanism will be.

Qi Si lowered his eyes and smiled softly: "According to public order and morality, the logical starting point of the task of killing the tiger monster is to protect the townspeople waiting to be slaughtered in Yanghua Town. Tell me, if all the townspeople are dead, is there any need to complete this task?"

The NPCs in weird games are, at best, a bunch of data; at worst, they are viruses that may infect the real world at any time. Even if they behave like humans, veteran players will not have any sympathy for them.

Lin Chen thought about it seriously and shook his head: "There are too many of them, at least a thousand people, and we only have three people. There is no way to kill them all at once without making any noise.

"Besides...even in a one-on-one match, we may not be able to defeat them."

"Who said we're going to fight them ourselves?" Qi Si asked with a smile, "You guys haven't forgotten what their true forms are so quickly, have you?"

"It's the scarecrow..."

Tang Yu stared for a moment, threw the Qingming dumpling in his hand onto the table, and held the flickering paper lantern with both hands.

"Straw is afraid of fire, but we have fire." (End of this chapter)