Infinite Weird Game

"Let's see if there are any useful clues first." Qis retracted his gaze, walked to the bedside table on the left side of the wooden bed, opened the drawers one by one and started to search.

Lin Chen nodded and began to search the bedside table on the right, intentionally avoiding the six-armed Mahakala statue on the table, as if simple contact would bring unfortunate consequences.

For some reason, he felt that this scene was familiar. In the "Rose Manor" copy, he and Qis shared a room and collected clues in the same way.

At that time, he was just a college student who knew nothing. Unexpectedly, in just two months, the world changed drastically. He went from just wanting to survive at the beginning to now hoping to do something for Qi Si.

"Lin Chen, do you still have the card of [Undead Shepherd] in your hand?" Qi Si asked suddenly.

Lin Chen was slightly startled, but then he remembered that he had two identity cards like Qis. [Bird-beak Doctor] was already bound, and [Undead Shepherd] was placed safely in his backpack.

The first thing he did after seeing the Revelation Monument was to study the two cards, but he did not find anything unusual; he studied them again yesterday, but still found nothing.

"It's still in my hand." Lin Chen replied without any doubt, "I put it in my item column. I can't bind it, and it seems that I can't give it away. I don't know what use it has."

Qi Si couldn't trust anyone, but he still said "hmm", skipped the topic and continued to rummage through the drawers.

The drawers in the guest room appear empty at first glance. Probably after each guest leaves, the innkeeper will clean them as usual to ensure that no garbage is left.

However, judging from the dust and flying wood chips at the bottom of the drawer, the cleaning work was not done carefully, at least it was not wiped with water.

If the predecessors intentionally left some information, it couldn't be easier. At least Qis thought of many ways to hide clues at first glance, including but not limited to stuffing notes in the cracks of wood.

There was no electric light in the room and the light was too dim. Qis simply pulled a piece of candle from the candlestick and shone it into the deep of the drawer, turning the gray-black bottom into a dark yellow.

The inside of the drawer was even dirtier than the outside. The wooden surface seemed to be covered with a layer of wax. When heated by the candle flame, the uneven gum began to wriggle softly, like a festering ulcer on a wound.

Qi Si moved the candle away, took out a handkerchief from his backpack, and gently wiped off the melted wax. The messy scratches were exposed before his eyes after losing their cover, and the distorted strokes released tangible fear and madness.

【Mirror?】【I don't remember...】【Mirror?】【Who am I?】【Mirror?】【Mirror】【Mirror】【Mirror...】

Except for the first few phrases, all the following sentences contain the same content. The strokes become increasingly scattered and difficult to recognize, eventually turning into a kind of graffiti that resembles ghostly scribbles. One can almost imagine how the person who carved these words gradually lost his mind and was swallowed up by the endless snow-capped mountains.

Why did he carve the same words so many times? He couldn't remember anything, so why did he doubt who he was?
He must have discovered something that horrified him, felt that he was about to die, and didn't know who to tell, so he thought of recording his discovery in a hidden place.

But when he was about to carve the words, he found that the wooden board was already engraved with dense words, all in his handwriting, but he had no impression of it at all...

So, what did he see in the mirror?
Qi Si was intrigued, so he stood up, walked around the room, and turned into the bathroom in the corner.

There stood a huge mirror in front of me, deeply embedded in the wall. As soon as I entered the door, I could see my own shadow reflected in it.

If the light was a little dimmer, I would probably hallucinate that there was a person of similar size walking towards me and standing face to face.

Qi Si leaned against the door and looked at his image in the mirror with red clothes and black hair for a while, but didn't see anything unusual.

The mirror seemed to be just an ordinary mirror. The person in the mirror was exactly the same as him in appearance and expression, with pale skin, soft eyebrows and eyes, and he never suddenly smiled like often portrayed in horror movies.

Keith tilted his head, and he in the mirror did the same, his image reflected in crimson eyes.

He didn’t know if it was because he had been looking at it for too long and the uncanny valley effect began to take effect, but for a moment, he felt that the eyes of the person in the mirror were inexplicably cold and gloomy.

A sense of disharmony suddenly arose, as if a switch was touched, and the image reflected in the mirror changed slightly.

Qis noticed that he was clearly in an inn, with a brown wooden wall behind him, but he was standing in the white snow in the mirror, his red suit trousers blurred into gray-pink by the snow spots, and his blood-red cloak fluttered in the strong wind.

The man still maintained his appearance and demeanor, but there was a palpable strangeness in him, as if he was not an image in the mirror, but a person with a face similar to his.

"Another me?" Qi Si reached out and touched the mirror, and put his index finger against the person in the mirror. "If I'm not mistaken, your name is 'Zhou Ke'..."

He originally suspected that Qi had left some arrangement behind, which happened to be lost in the thirty-six years of lost memory, so he was unaware of it; later he thought that it might be the mechanism of the redundant identity card that would spontaneously generate a suitable holder.

But now think about it, is there a possibility that the tentacles of the final copy have already been planted in reality, and the various anomalies he encountered before are also part of the final copy, and will eventually receive the final judgment on this snowy mountain?

There are too few clues, and all thoughts are just guesses, not conclusions.

But if there really is another him, then the enemy is in the dark and I am in the light, and it is still undecided who will take the first move. He is undoubtedly at a disadvantage in this game.

Just like his replica is to his original self in "Dialectical Games".

Qi Si stood in front of the mirror for a while, and then he felt cold. The wind blew ice flakes onto his face and body, robbing him of all the heat, making his already low body temperature even lower.

The exposed skin felt painful as if it was being cut by a knife. The cold air penetrated into the bones, and the pain went deep into the marrow and spread along the meridians to the whole body.

Qi Si saw himself in the mirror unconsciously leaning forward slightly and putting his hands in front of him to block the wind and snow. He realized belatedly that he had done the same thing.

The sudden cold was not a groundless feeling of synaesthesia, but it actually acted on him through the mirror. He seemed to be in the ice and snow, just like the person in the mirror, and was ravaged by the cold wind.

The scene in the mirror is not static, but keeps moving backwards. To be more precise, it is the him in the mirror who is moving forward.

When Qis saw a mountaineering knife stuck diagonally in the snow next to the right foot of the person in the mirror, he suddenly had an interesting idea.

So, he slowly bent down and stretched his hand to his left foot, watching the movements of the person in the mirror change with his movements. He stretched out his hand to the climbing knife at his right foot and scratched the blade with his index finger.

A stinging pain came from the fingertips, and Qi Si lowered his eyes to see a smooth cut on his index finger, with blood oozing out of it. The index finger of the person in the mirror was also bleeding, but there was no surprise on his face, nor any further action, as if he was just a phantom projected by Qi Si in the mirror, without thoughts, consciousness, or autonomy.

Qi Si sucked the wound on his finger and speculated with interest about the function of the mirror and the relationship between himself and the person in the mirror.

Based on his understanding of himself, if he really wanted to hide his existence, the small injury on his finger could be completely ignored, and with his acting skills, he could make it so that people wouldn't notice anything unusual.

So, how about inflicting some more fatal injuries?

Considering that the injuries in the mirror would also appear on his body, Qis decisively gave up the idea of ​​self-harm.

After all, no matter which one he is, he is essentially "Qisi", and the contradiction can be put aside for the time being; if the snipe and the clam fight each other, allowing Jiuzhou and Tingfeng to reap the benefits, he would probably laugh at himself to death.

"Brother Qi, I found some records here. They look like diaries." Lin Chen's voice came from the bedside table, interrupting Qi Si's thoughts.

Qi Si gave up studying the mirror which made no sense to him and walked over.

What Lin Chen found was a thread-bound notebook. The cover was soaked in water and then dried. It was uneven like dead skin, and the surface was covered with yellow spots of various sizes.

Fortunately, the handwriting is still clear and neat like printed text. Even if the ink of a few words is blurred, the general meaning can be guessed based on the context.

It is indeed as Lin Chen said, this is a diary, and it should be a record left intentionally by the predecessors, and every detail is made as clear as possible.

[January 2014, 1, at the Snow Mountain Inn:

[My name is Chu Yining, and I’m from the Ark Guild. My last memory was attending the Guild Mobilization Meeting in Sunset Ruins. I opened my eyes and closed them, and when I regained consciousness, I was here.

【Not only me, Lin Jue is here too, who knows what the selection criteria are. Lin Jue thinks this should be the final copy, I think so too, after all, it is the Mother Goddess and eternal life, it looks quite similar.

[In addition to us, Ji Yi, Zhai Qifan, Zhang Hongbin, Ivan Quinn, Arthur Ross, and Vasilyevna are also here. I'm not sure if we can successfully pass the final instance, so let's prepare for the worst. If we fail, I hope these records can be saved and help you later. ]

[1. The hymns will continue to attract believers. The believers' purpose is to "convert" the tourists, and the way of conversion is parasitism. Do not have physical contact with the believers. (ps. This is still very easy to do, just stay calm. The believers walked very slowly, even I couldn't catch up with them in a wheelchair ^▽^)]

[2. Most of the natives of Shangri-La should want to convert travelers (Lin Jue found a copy of the "Sutra of Converting People" in the scripture shop in the town, I don't know if it is still there when you come), so don't trust any NPC easily.

[But NPCs won't do anything wrong. There are certain rules for conversion. (ps. I guess the old man named 'Sangji' in the inn needs to ask for the right room number if he wants to convert someone. He asks for the room number whenever he catches someone. We didn't tell him.)]

【3. All extra consumption in Shangri-La needs to be exchanged with "things from the Mother Goddess", which can be props, souls, and flesh and blood. Lin Jue suggested not to consume props easily, as it is a pitfall; but I think exchanging souls and flesh and blood for things sounds even more of a pitfall~

[4. It is normal that you don't know the main quest and can't see the system interface. The same is true for us. Lin Jue and I plan to walk around the town tomorrow and then go to the snow mountain to have a look. (ps. Don't look out the window when you sleep at night, it's scary; don't look in the mirror, the same applies)

[After making the worst-case scenario plan, I’ll say something auspicious: I think the chances of us clearing the final instance are pretty high, since Lin Jue is here. And according to the novel’s plot, it’s been fifteen years and it should finally be over~]

The last few pages of the diary were stuck together and could not be opened no matter how hard they were torn. The information provided on the first page was almost all what Qis already knew, so the only thing that could help him was the "enlightenment".

Lin Chen held the diary in his hand, not knowing what he was thinking about, and said in a hoarse voice: "They failed in the end and stayed here forever."

"Yeah." Keith lay flat on the bed, looking at the ceiling. "If they succeeded, we should have gone back to our own homes by now and not appear in the weird game at all."

Lin Chen was speechless for a moment.

People from the past came full of hope, and did not know the outcome of the game they were in; people from the future saw their remains, watched the optimism of those in the game with answers, and felt shocked.

The person mentioned in the diary is a legendary figure in the early days of the weird game. As one of the first players to enter the weird game, he established a new order through trial and error and clarified the underlying rules of the dungeon through countless trials and errors and sacrifices.

Lin Chen thought to himself that they had been struggling in this strange game for fifteen years, and their abilities and experience reserves were much higher than that of a newcomer like him, but they still died here...

Lin Chen thought for a moment and asked, "Brother Qi, do you think we will succeed?"

"I don't know." Qi Si said calmly, "Maybe, maybe not. We have already entered the game and are destined not to know the answer."

He knew what Lin Chen was worried about, but in his opinion, the group of players who came to this copy eleven years ago might not all be dead.

The names of Lin Jue and Xiao Fengchao are hung high on the broken monument of Revelation, as the holders of [Dark Judge] and [Doomsday Prophet] respectively.

As we all know, the dead cannot have identity cards.

Qis tends to believe that the weird game has been recruiting players for the past thirty-six years, and it was only today that enough people were gathered to compete in the same copy.

However, are all the people really gathered? There are still four identity cards on the revelation monument with blank spaces behind them...

Lin Chen was silent for a while, then asked: "Brother Qi, what should we do next?"

"There are too few clues. Don't think about it anymore." Qi Si turned over with his back to Lin Chen and closed his eyes. "Go to bed early. Let's go to town tomorrow. I'm curious about what the "Saving People Sutra" looks like."

"Oh oh!" Lin Chen climbed onto the bed rustlingly, lay down next to Qi Si, and stopped talking.

Qi Si listened to the breathing of the people around him gradually calm down, and closed his eyes, but his thoughts continued to wander uncontrollably.

What would it feel like to truly die? Would it be like falling into a darkness that never fades away, like sleep?

That's really boring... (End of this chapter)