Instance game: I signed a pact with the gods, and the gods accused me of cheating

What?

What do you mean?

Meeting my surprised gaze, Qin Shang scratched his head and gave a dog-like smile.

"Didn't the announcement just say that we should be prepared? This means that the eight carriages during the game are to be counted into the first carriage we landed in."

"Of course, before this, I wasn't sure if the first carriage was actually poisonous. So when I heard that guy say he wanted to be the one in the first carriage without a mask, I was ready to change my mind at any time. If the first carriage was one of these eight, I would have put on my mask and oxygen tank the moment I was sure of it."

Hearing this, I felt a surge of pride, but then I thought, even if Qin Shang didn't wear a mask in the first round, he would actually put on an oxygen mask and insert the oxygen tank in the end when he realized something was wrong.

So if Qin Shang's initial statement had gone according to plan, there would have been no casualties in the first carriage. In other words, if Li Jinyu had not temporarily changed Qin Shang's plan, he could at least have survived the second round.

Thinking of this, I stared at the corpse not far away. Li Jinyu, whose skin had completely turned the color of pig liver and looked dead, suddenly became emotionally complicated. It was his own sudden change of heart, his own petty schemes, and the dark side of human nature that had cost him his precious life...

At this moment, Qin Shang's voice came again from not far from my ear.

"After all, from the perspective of a game designer, if the goal is to play with people's hearts and make us die in arrogance and fear, then leaving poison gas in the last three carriages and the first carriage at the beginning can both achieve this goal, and the effect is very good."

The next moment, Qin Shang played with the mask in his hand, revealing a cold white face with sharp edges and evil and cold features. In the speeding train, the pressure difference between the inside and outside was enough to expel the atomized poison gas during this period.

Hearing this, I stared at him with a blank expression, waiting for him to continue speaking.

"Don't look at me like that. I didn't kill him. I didn't know that the first carriage would be included in the eight carriages..."

He paused, and his tone softened again;

"Well, let me explain it from another perspective. From the perspective of a game designer, we would think that if we were the designers, it would be too boring to put poison in the first car. Players would be very cautious. If there was poison in the first car in the first round, the players would definitely wear oxygen masks and persist until the fifth round, and then I would kill you in the final three rounds. But for the developers of this game, this is actually boring. The interesting way to play is to randomly assign poison and let you go empty-handed in the first round, or even in the first few rounds!"

"Even though they have oxygen tanks, they're afraid of dying in a later round because they're out of oxygen, so out of sheer daring, they decide to take a risk and release poison gas into these cars when they run out of oxygen. I think that would be more interesting. Of course, the game's designers aren't simply testing our nature or trying to gauge our reactions; they're simply toying with us."

"Only when you miss will you be afraid, and only then will you continue to create wonderful scenes..."

"For example, there was no poison gas in the first three rounds, but the players were afraid it might be there, so they wasted their oxygen cylinders in three carriages. Then, in the next carriage, they had to make some seemingly rational decisions that were actually based on pure luck!"

"The designer of his game definitely didn't intend to kill us, or rather, it wasn't a simple, crude attempt to kill us. If they wanted to kill us directly, then the designer of this supernatural phenomenon could have easily left us dead the moment we entered this world."

"He didn't choose to do this..."

Qin Shang paused and touched his pocket meaningfully. It seemed that he was looking for cigarettes.

But it is obvious that when we enter this world known as the Divine Road, we seem unable to bring in things from the real world, including what I saw with my own eyes at that time, Qin Shang's "Divine Road Game", that comic book fell directly to the ground, so it was obvious that his action of touching his pocket to find a cigarette was naturally in vain.

"If you understand what I just said, you'll understand what it all means. This game definitely leaves us room to maneuver. It doesn't necessarily kill us, which means we don't necessarily have to die. All games or matches that don't guarantee a 100% win or loss have this same thing in mind."

“It’s called balance!”

"Then, here we need to guess the designer's intentions."

"They were going to kill us. They left poisonous gas in the last three rounds, leaving the first five clean carriages. They really could do that. After hearing the rules, we were shocked and instinctively put on our masks and plugged in our oxygen tanks in every carriage. Finally, when we discovered that the last five carriages had no poisonous gas at all, and we'd scared ourselves out of using up our oxygen tanks in those first five, we were left with the last three carriages, knowing they were filled with poisonous gas, and we had to sit there and wait for death... It was despair."

"But if I were the designer, I would be even more ruthless. I would place the first gas carriage in the third section. That way, if some players survive the first section without a mask, and some survive the second section without a mask, those who may have been wearing masks from the beginning would feel unbalanced, as they would have wasted two masks."

"They might develop a gambler's mentality."

"It's fine to say no to pornography, gambling, and drugs, but sometimes in life you'll encounter train problems like this. Sometimes you just can't refuse gambling. It's not that everyone has a gambling nature, but under certain circumstances, people have no choice but to gamble, which triggers their gambling nature."

"It's most interesting to let these cautious players die in the third round. It shows the different choices people make when faced with danger, and it also reveals human nature. For example, some people think there wasn't poison gas in the first round, while others think there might be. This creates a control group, with some wearing masks and some not. Those who didn't survived, while those who did wasted an oxygen tank in vain, which fosters a gamble."

"Three people, three different reactions. The cautious one might always wear a mask no matter what others do. The adventurous one might not wear a mask when they think they won't die. The wavering one, after seeing someone not wearing a mask and not dying, might think about taking another gamble..."

"Three people form the control group. The first to die is most likely to be the indecisive or the adventurous. After one person dies, if the one who died was the adventurous person, then the indecisive people will be more cautious. But this also provides oxygen tanks for the person's death. If the indecisive person dies, perhaps the adventurous people will die in a certain round. So no matter how you calculate it, the person who plays it safe and never takes risks is actually more likely to survive to the end."

Qin Shang spoke very excitedly, but my mind was in a mess.

It was like the teacher was giving a lecture and I was paying close attention but didn’t understand anything at all.

And that's not what I want to hear. I don't want to hear him speculate on the thinking of the designer of this Shenlu game from his own perspective. Besides, their ideas don't really coincide. I just want to know the first round...

Why did someone die in the first carriage?

After talking for a long time, he kept analyzing from his own perspective...

The next moment, I stopped indulging him and spoke seriously, enunciating each word in a deep voice.

"But, someone died in the first round!"

Qin Shang grinned, revealing his white teeth;

"Great! This is what makes the game interesting."

"I also thought at first... the eight carriages mentioned in the broadcast didn't include the one we were in. Starting from the next carriage, three of the eight carriages randomly appeared filled with toxic gas. If that's the case, I'm 80% sure the first carriage isn't poisonous!"

"Players are all new here, so they're all cautious. In the first car, everyone will likely be wearing oxygen masks, and no one will be willing to gamble. Therefore, it's best not to use poison in the first round. This way, the other two types of adventurous and wavering players can emerge in the second round."

"But……"

At this point, Qin Shang made a change of tone.

"This initial carriage we appeared in is also counted."

"In other carriages, we need to confirm whether we are wearing masks before the doors open. Wearing masks after the doors open is useless because the poison gas will kill you in just one second. Therefore, we need to confirm whether we plan to wear masks in the next carriage before the doors open."

"But when we showed up in the initial carriage, we were able to have a normal conversation here, which means it was non-toxic."

"If this section is counted as non-toxic, wouldn't that be like giving us a non-toxic carriage? We just need to use the five oxygen cylinders in the next seven times to determine whether the next carriage after the door opens is toxic or non-toxic."

"That doesn't conform to the rules of the game. The rules clearly state that there are eight carriages, three of which are poisonous. Players have five oxygen cylinders, and they need to plan where to use and consume them..."

"He included the carriage we landed in, which means this carriage might also be poisonous."

"But we weren't poisoned the moment we appeared. That means there might be poison gas in this carriage as well. We just have to wait until the game starts. However, this information is easily overlooked due to preconceived notions."

Qin Shang paused and his gaze fell on the blue and purple corpse not far away;

"Most people will think this carriage is harmless after hearing about it. This will immediately give rise to the adventurous, the wavering, and the conservative groups..."

"This is one of the most despairing ways to die, because some people will think that this carriage must be non-toxic, some people will think that this carriage must be poisonous, and some people will think that this carriage may not be non-toxic."

"As long as they truly understand the rules, someone will definitely sacrifice in the first round. Furthermore, the first person to die will definitely be the waverer. Even if they don't die in this round's carriage, they will most likely die in one of the rooms in the middle filled with poisonous gas..."

"Besides, even if we didn't understand the rules of this game ahead of time and chose to wear oxygen masks and insert oxygen cylinders in the first round, how can we determine whether there is indeed poison gas in this carriage if the three of us are still alive?"

"Is the sprayed mist necessarily poisonous gas?"

"If we proceed to the next carriage, believing it's safe after passing through the first, we'll likely continue to use up our oxygen tanks in the later carriages. At that point, the remaining adventurous and cautious people will likely die in one of the later carriages, the second one with the poisonous gas."

I'm confused and don't want to listen to his nonsense.

In fact, I didn't have time to feel sad about Zhao Jinyu's death, because his death was too sudden. He died just after he appeared. And generally speaking, the reason for his death had little to do with Qin Shang. In addition, after touching the dining cart, I seemed to have awakened some special mind-reading skills. I could actually hear Zhao Jinyu's thoughts. After knowing the boy's psychological activities, I didn't have any good feelings towards the young man. Even the most basic goodwill towards him dropped to freezing point.

To sum up, his death did not have much impact or shock on me.

Right now, I only have one thought in my mind, which is to return to the real world.