Infinite Weird Game

The sound of the wind and the singing faded away, as did the coldness that he felt. Qisi stood up and found that he was only as tall as the bed.

He was wearing a red long gown embroidered with gold, the sleeves of which entangled his limbs and fluttered with his steps. Barefoot, he pushed open the wooden door with great effort and bumped into the light that filled the world.

The blinding light filled every corner. Qi Si half-closed his eyes, slowed down his pace, and walked forward carefully. Someone was talking in his ear, but he couldn't hear it clearly at first. When he took a few more steps forward, the words became clear.

"Qi, where are you going?"

"Qi, don't go any further, you shouldn't go there..."

"Qi, wait for me..."

The light gradually faded, or perhaps my eyes got used to the light. A huge golden tree stood between heaven and earth, its branches and vines crisscrossing like a spider web, like a cage.

Qis found himself standing on the edge of a cliff. Below him stretched endless ruins, with broken slabs of stone and damaged stone walls interlaced with each other. A golden sunset hung in the distance above the collapsed temple.

He felt that the scene looked familiar for no reason, but he couldn't remember where he had seen it before. He stopped and looked back. The child in the black robe stood behind him expressionlessly, holding out his hand to him.

Zeiss dodged his touch and ran in the other direction.

The setting sun disappeared, and in the sky that should have been inlaid with the sun and the moon, a pair of silver-white eyes hung, looking at the world below indifferently and peacefully. The misty white veil spread in all directions, gradually covering the boundless earth.

Qi Si suddenly felt a sticky feeling of restraint, as if a tiny insect was immersed in amber. He wanted to speak, but only heard a suffocating silence.

He once again walked to the edge of the cliff and saw the ruins below. His steps became heavier and heavier, as if he was being dragged backwards by an invisible object, almost tripping him.

"Don't go down..." someone said behind me.

Was she worried about him? Or was she afraid? But if living meant being bored and trapped in a cage, then she might as well try to die.

Qi Si smiled and suddenly jumped down.

The strong wind blew around his ears, but he did not fall to the ground. When his vision settled again, the blood-red robe on his body faded drop by drop and turned into a white shirt in a few seconds.

A woman held up his hand and bandaged the bleeding wound on his finger. While bandaging, she blamed him: "Qis, you are always so naughty and hurt yourself again..."

Qi Si stared at the woman and asked, "Who are you?"

The woman was startled, then she smiled gently and reached out to touch his forehead: "What's wrong with you? I'm your mother..."

……

When Qi Si woke up, it was already daybreak. The blazing white sunlight reflected off the ice surface and penetrated the glass window, falling on his cheeks, cold and dazzling.

The hymns that had been playing for half the night last night stopped at some point, leaving only the sound of the wind hitting the windows and the staggered sounds of dominoes and wind chimes hitting in the distance.

The cut on his index finger had stopped bleeding and he didn't feel any pain. Qi Si looked down for a while, thought of something, and tapped his chin with his index finger.

Gods don't need sleep, but he fell asleep last night. That means he has now returned to human form, can die, and can be harmed by ghosts...

In a sense, the weird game is quite fair to other players, at least it reduces everyone's abilities to the same level.

Keith sat up and walked to the window.

The corpses lay safely and intact under the ice, their eyes closed, peaceful and alert. The scene of corpses lying everywhere last night seemed like a nightmare, and there was not even a trace of blood left.

Qi Si walked to the bedside table, picked up the diary left by Chu Yining and shook it casually. The pages that could not be turned last night suddenly spread out automatically, revealing a new page of records.

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

[Vasilevna was dead, and there was blood everywhere. There was blood in the room, on the bed, and on the glass... Her skin was peeled off and hung on a painting in the corridor. They said it was a human skin thangka.

[The old man who manages the inn said that thangkas should be made of girls' skin because the texture is more delicate and pure. So Vasilyevna died... Who will die next? Will it be me?
【Lin Jue said that weird games are fair and will not target a certain gender, so I shouldn’t worry. I know he was just comforting me. We are all dead, so there is no reason for the final instance to be fair to us...

[We must leave the inn today. If one person dies every day, it will be my turn tomorrow... The way here is gone. We can only cross the snow mountain. As long as we cross the snow mountain, we can leave Shangri-La. Yes, if we cross the snow mountain, we can pass the level...]

The handwriting on the paper is brand new, the ink hasn't even dried yet, as if one can feel the temperature of the recorder through the paper and blur out the strokes just written.

Anyone who witnessed this scene could not help but wonder whether there was a parallel world overlapping with this place, where another team of invisible players were experiencing the same copy, leaving records on paper in real time as time passed.

But for most people, the existence of that team of players is already a thing of the past. Twenty-two years is enough to obliterate the history of an entire generation.

In the new diary, Chu Yining was not as calm as on the first day. Her language was incoherent and her logic was messy.

After a female player died tragically, she quickly realized that danger was about to befall her, so she made the risky decision to cross the snow-capped mountains.

Who will go with her? What will be the outcome? It is unknown at the moment.

Qi Si tentatively flipped through the diary in his hand, but the pages at the back were still stuck together, so he might have to wait until tomorrow to turn to a new page.

He casually rolled up the diary into a bundle and stuffed it into his pocket, his eyes falling on the big bed beside him.

Lin Chen lay on his side, wrapped himself in the quilt, and slept soundly. His whole body was buried in the quilt, and he breathed with his mouth slightly open, as if he was going to sleep until noon.

Qi Si leaned over and patted his back lightly: "Lin Chen, wake up, it's morning."

Lin Chen covered his head with the quilt and muttered vaguely: "Mom, I'll sleep for another ten minutes..."

Qi Si lost his patience and simply threw back the quilt and picked him up.

There was a noisy sound outside the door, and the sound of chaotic footsteps gathered in the same place. "It's Mu Chuqing! It's Mu Chuqing who died! I didn't see her when I woke up in the morning, and I thought she went out to collect clues..." A female voice rang out sharply, coming from the talkative female player named "Yu Su" yesterday.

Qi Si pushed open the door, and a strong smell of blood hit him in the face.

A circle of people had already gathered at the door, covering most of the blood color, and fear was written on everyone's face.

Xu Yao and Lu Li were also among the onlookers. The former looked indifferent and looked around curiously; the latter had a frown on his face, and no one knew what he was thinking.

Through the gaps in the crowd, one could vaguely see a bloody corpse standing at the door like a sculpture, blood gushing out from its sunken eye sockets and bloody intestines flowing out of its ripped abdomen.

Behind the corpse, a picture frame appeared on the wall that was empty last night. In the center hung a piece of human skin that had just been peeled off. Blood was still dripping from the edges, leaving red vertical lines on the wall.

Lu Li pushed through the crowd, walked to the human skin, bent down slightly, reached out to wipe the blood stains on the surface, and said: "This is a human skin thangka. Judging from the patterns and gems inlaid on it, it depicts Mahakala. Orthodox Tantric human skin thangkas require the whole back skin of a deceased monk to be taken out, and this one -"

He paused, and stroked the edge of the human skin with his fingers. "The knife wound on the side of the neck is messy, and the skin on the limbs is torn. It is obvious that the victim struggled violently when being skinned alive, and shouted for help. But none of us noticed the abnormality last night and offered help. It is basically certain that once he is targeted, death is inevitable."

Lu Li's voice was cold and his pronunciation was clear. A terrifying scene almost appeared in front of the players' eyes:

The woman's skin was forcibly peeled off her body. She waved her limbs wildly in the process, but was unable to break free of the invisible existence; she shouted for help and screamed, but no one could hear her.

It was not until the entire human skin was completely peeled off and the living person became a bloody corpse that the feeling of despair truly ended with the end of life.

She stood in the middle of the corridor in silence and unwillingness, her muscles still spasming like a conditioned reflex. She had only returned to silence after a night, but it seemed as if she could be awakened at any time...

"This is an instant death point. The only solution is to avoid being selected." Fu Jue made a judgment and glanced at the female player who was squatting in the corner and shivering. "Yu Su, you have been with Mu Chuqing. Did she do anything special yesterday?"

The female player called "Yu Su" went from being noisy to the other extreme at this time. She looked at the blood on the floor with a sad face and cried: "I don't know, she and I went to bed very early, I don't know what happened afterwards... wuwuwu..."

Her confusion didn't seem fake, and it seemed that she couldn't provide much useful information. But as a player chosen by Fu Jue and brought into the final dungeon, her behavior was indeed strange.

Logically speaking, they are all at the top of the list, and have experienced life and death. They must have seen even the most horrific scenes no less than a hundred times. How come they panic when they see a corpse, even worse than the newcomers who just entered the weird game?
Many people have basically come to the conclusion that although Yu Su is still alive, she may have been infected. This "infection" is more hidden than Mu Chuqing's death. It is not a physical injury, but a wear and tear on the soul and spirit. I don't know what the trigger mechanism is...

The players signaled to each other with their eyes, and their faces looked a little solemn.

Qi Si thought of the records in Chu Yining's diary and looked at Yu Su: "Did you reveal the room number to the NPC yesterday?"

Yu Su wiped her tears and said hesitantly, "Maybe... yes. Yesterday, Mu Chuqing and I met a ghost on the road, and in the end it was the old man downstairs who sent us back to our room..."

Fu Jue said: "If the situation is true, telling the ghost the room number is likely to be one of the triggering conditions of the death point."

"That's not right." Jiang Junjue blinked twice. "When Shuomeng and I entered the room, we didn't hide from people. When we saw the old man sneaking around at the end of the corridor, I even said hello to him."

After talking about the dream, he said with fear: "I felt that the old man was not a good person yesterday. I was frightened the whole night. Fortunately, nothing happened. It's a pity for sister Chuqing..."

Fu Jue glanced at the two of them and said calmly, "The second condition to trigger this death point is female gender. In the view of Tantra, female skin is more delicate and pure, and is the best material for making human skin thangka."

"Huh? No way...this weird game is sexist?"

The clicking sound of prayer wheels came from the stairs at the right time. Sangji, the innkeeper, climbed up to the second floor tremblingly and walked through the corridor as if no one was around.

The players fell silent and consciously moved to the sides, leaving a small path wide enough for one person to pass through.

Sangji walked forward slowly without looking around, limping towards the bloody human skin on the wall. Suddenly, he put his hands together and muttered, "Mother Goddess, this thangka comes from a pure girl and will surely carry your pure power..."

The old man muttered something incomprehensible to himself, then turned to look at the players and grinned, "Dear guests, the new thangka has arrived. Please enjoy it. Everyone in Shangri-La loves thangka, and I believe you will like it too."

Yu Su opened her mouth as if to say something, but Li Yunyang was quick to cover her mouth before she could speak, and said to Sang Ji with a forced smile, "Thank you, old man. We will appreciate it very much."

Sangji nodded with satisfaction, turned around and left staggeringly.

Li Yunyang didn't let go of his hand until his back disappeared at the stairs.

Yu Su cried bitterly: "Mu Chuqing is dead, will it be my turn tomorrow? Wuuuu, I don't want to die..."

Xu Yao finally couldn't bear it anymore and said to Lu Li in a low voice: "Didn't they say that the places in the final instance are very valuable? How come anyone can come in now?"

A male player from Jiuzhou looked a little embarrassed and muttered to himself, "Yu Su wasn't like this before. I've never seen her expression change in so many dungeons. She's always been ruthless and doesn't talk much. I don't know what's going on this time..."

Yu Su was still crying uncontrollably, her face wrinkled into a ball, not showing any sign of being a "cruel man of few words" at all.

Li Yunyang frowned slightly, squatted down in front of her, and asked: "Yu Su, how do you feel now? Are you feeling uncomfortable?"

Yu Su kept shaking her head: "Sister, I'm scared..."

Everyone's faces froze. Yu Su and Li Yunyang were of similar age, both around 25 or 26, and there was no way they could call each other "sister".

The situation was extremely strange. Jiang Junjue didn't know what he remembered. He took out a stack of papers from his arms and handed them to Fu Jue: "I found these records in the room last night. I didn't know what they meant at the time... Let's take a look at them."

Fu Jue took the paper, took a look at it and passed it to Lu Li beside him, and Lu Li passed it to Xu Yao.

It was passed around and everyone saw what was on the paper.

The same sentence was written in all kinds of crooked, distorted fonts that looked like children's graffiti:

【We have turned back into children.】(End of this chapter)