When he started again, Wen Shi's thoughts became much clearer. The current story line was not difficult, but this time the dungeon had a strict survival rate, which meant that some players would definitely die.
As I walked, tiny ashes drifted in the air, and if I wasn't careful, they would enter my body with my breath. Along the way, there were only a few straight telephone poles and warm weather for company. The air was damp and cold, and when my skin came into contact with these strange ashes, it gave me a strange burning sensation.
Wen Shi kept his eyes on his surroundings, trying to spot other figures.
However, he was the only one walking alone in the wilderness from beginning to end. The building that seemed not far away took him a long time to reach.
Just when Wen Shi felt a little tired, the extreme emptiness around him was interrupted by a building full of traces of time, and he finally arrived at his destination.
It was completely different from the ruins he had imagined. When Wen Shi actually walked up to the building, he found that the place that was said to have burned down had been renovated. On a rainbow-shaped stone tablet, three large characters "孤*院" were engraved.
The font is as dark as ink, and the words in the middle seem to be naturally blurred by mosaics, making them impossible to see clearly, but people's eyes will always be attracted to it invisibly.
Wen Shi stared at it for several minutes before suddenly coming to his senses.
Then he discovered that his rationality value had dropped to ninety-eight.
When the game didn't assign him any other tasks, he could only bite the bullet and walk towards the orphanage.
There was no security guard at the door, and the iron gate was rusty, so it was easy to get in.
The interior environment is so simple that it can be seen at a glance. The first thing that catches the eye is the red house opposite. Under the dark clouds, some places are red to purple, presenting a strange sense of alternating colors.
There is a slide and some fitness equipment on the left side of the house. It looks like no one has used them for a long time and they are covered with leaves.
The door of the red house was not locked, and Wen Shi was about to walk in without stopping, but when he passed the slide, a middle-aged woman suddenly appeared from the shadows.
The woman was very thin, her limbs like burnt branches. She stared at Wen Shi with her cloudy eyes and asked in a hoarse voice, "Do you want to adopt?"
Wen Shi frowned reflexively, not because he was considering the safety of adoption first, but because he had promised A Sang that their family could only have one child.
Although A Sang looks cute and silly at ordinary times, he is very inconsistent in his words when it comes to important matters!
"Do you want to adopt?" the woman asked again.
Even from a distance, Wen Shi could feel a cold wind mixed with the smell of charcoal blowing towards him.
Wen Shi thought for a moment, then smiled and asked the first question: "Excuse me, is this an orphanage?"
The woman did not answer and began to walk towards him. In just a few steps, the moisture in her body evaporated further, and the bones at the end of her fingers could be seen exposed.
Before the woman completely changed, Wen Shi changed his tone and said, "I want to adopt."
The silent anger in the woman finally subsided: "Follow me."
She took Wen Shi into the red house with only half the door open. The bricks on the outside were a little faded, the lampshades above the building were dirty, and there were incomplete children's handprints on the yellowed walls.
Wen Shi stared at the woman's back, his eyes narrowed, his mind wandering. After a moment, he took the initiative to bring up these suspicious areas, uncharacteristically: "Is this a child's prank on the wall?"
The woman seemed to dislike talking. She didn't answer and walked forward without looking around.
After passing several rooms in succession, the old light bulbs had a limited lighting range, and the corridor with few windows was filled with interweaving light and shadow. After finally passing another window, the woman stopped.
The dark clouds outside dispersed a little, and with the help of a few rays of faint sunlight, Wen Shi saw the dust in the air.
In this light, the woman suddenly turned around and her voice was hoarse and unpleasant. For Wen Shi, who was used to hearing beautiful voices in the previous copy, it was actually a torture.
"Are you really here to adopt?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.
Wen Shi said sincerely, "I can't guarantee its authenticity."
The two looked at each other for a second, until the corners of the woman's mouth slowly pulled out a smile, and the smile became bigger and bigger until her whole face was wrinkled.
"Very good." She praised Wen Shi.
Wen Shi didn't show any expression on his face, but his shoulders relaxed slightly.
When he asked the other party if this was an orphanage, the woman didn't answer at all, which made him feel strongly uncomfortable.
As an NPC, if the ultimate goal is to allow players to adopt the child, then you should nod your head.
Later, seeing the handprints on the wall, Wen Shi tried again, even offering the excuse that the child was playing a prank, but the woman still didn't respond. Clearly, a casual, perfunctory response would have been more effective in convincing the adoptive parents.
Wen Shi came to the conclusion: women don't like lies; or rather, in this orphanage, lying is a death rule.
This inference made him feel a cold malice. The rules could be deduced carefully, but most people would subconsciously choose to say nice things when faced with this question from an NPC.
A sharp whistle pierced his eardrums and hurt. Wen Shi came back to his senses. The woman in front of him blew the whistle hanging around her neck: "Assemble!"
Her dry throat made it impossible to produce any sound, and when she tried to raise her voice, her vocal cords felt like they were about to tear.
The sound drifted along with the whistle in the corridor ahead, and one of the doors of the room hidden in the darkness slowly opened.
Wen Shi stood behind the woman, with a puzzle in his mind that had not been solved. Now it was obvious that they had entered a new plot, so why hadn't the first short story started yet?
·
In fact, Wen Shi's initial inference was not wrong. Players may not all gather in one short story, but their story lines will eventually intersect.
Let's go back to last night when we just formed a team and entered the dungeon.
Compared to Wen Shi who was almost strangled to death, Pei Hongxin had a very good start after entering the dungeon. He woke up on a small bed. There were several identical beds around him, covered with uniform white bedding. Everyone seemed to be asleep at the moment.
The game prompt sounded immediately:
[Due to the large fluctuation in the difficulty level of dungeons, the two weakest players in this round will be placed in the "Orphanage", which has a lower initial difficulty level.]
[You need to compete with another player for adoption qualifications]
Pei Hongxin breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the words "difficulty reduced". He raised his hands in front of him, feeling quite incredible.
His little hands were soft and clean, without any of the calluses that had formed due to the incorrect pen-holding posture during his school days. He had actually returned to the look of his childhood, and judging by his arms and legs, he looked only about seven or eight years old.
There is an indescribable strange smell in the room.
I don't know what this place is, a kindergarten? A hospital...
There are many possibilities. Pei Hongxin was thinking about whether to get out of bed and take the risk to go out and take a look. When he turned his head and prepared to look for his shoes, he suddenly met a pair of dark eyes!
It turned out that the child in the bed next to him had his eyes open, staring at him motionlessly.
A whistling sound of wind distracted Pei Hongxin's attention.
The moonlight could not penetrate the greasy glass of the low window. The night wind blew the curtains and the room was illuminated by a candle.
The curtains nearly swept over the candles several times, and just when Pei Hongxin thought this might start a fire, he smelled a strong odor of smoke. The child in the bed opposite him grinned, his head charred black in laughter. Pei Hongxin's body tensed beneath the quilt, but he didn't close his eyes. Instead, he took the initiative to lift the quilt.
He held his breath and asked, "Do you want to go to the bathroom together?"
The child nodded strangely.
Going to the bathroom at night is a dangerous thing in any ghost story, let alone inviting a charred monster.
But Pei Hongxin always remembered that this was a role-playing book, and he had to think of himself as one of these children. The children chose to go to bed at a fixed time, which showed that they were subconsciously following human living habits.
You have to approach them boldly to prove that you are the same.
Pei Hongxin tried hard to stop his legs from shaking and walked out with the child.
He observed each bed carefully as he passed by, and found that some of the children were as burnt as charcoal.
This fire element brought back an unpleasant memory for Pei Hongxin. When he forced himself to suppress the memory, he finally saw a child who looked like a human being. He immediately determined that the child was a player like himself.
He stopped and asked: "Toilet?"
The other player naturally refused the inexplicable invitation and the system's competition prompt.
Pei Hongxin looked at the old ceramic water cup on the table: "You drank a lot of water before going to bed, are you sure you don't want to go?"
He tried to stretch his lips wide, appearing strangely pretentious, but upon closer inspection, his voice trembled slightly. The charred child, almost clinging to Pei Hongxin's back, poked half of his head out to look at the player on the bed.
"No." The player became more and more certain that the other party had triggered some troublesome task and was trying to trick him into going there together.
"No one seems to have slept much." It seems that he was lucky this time, encountering an opponent with weak strength and average intelligence. Pei Hongxin asked: "Do you want to come back and play a little game..."
He didn't leave, and the child didn't leave either, they just stared at the player.
The player was getting nervous from being stared at, and he hated Pei Hongxin's deliberate attempt to divert his attention. To avoid attracting too much attention from the NPC, he feigned a yawn and said, "I'm sleepy. I'm going to sleep first."
After saying that, he covered himself with the quilt, looking as if he didn't want to hear anything.
Pei Hongxin smiled, and this time it was a sincere smile.
The child also giggled, and he climbed onto the player's bed with his hands and feet together, which scared the player.
"Why don't you join us?"
The thin limbs crawled up faster than a gecko, and the black little hands pressed the player's shoulders, "Why—"
His voice suddenly rose, and the candle flame flickered.
An experienced player would have calmed down and taken the risk of agreeing to all the previous offers. However, this player had only been in dungeons a few times, and after being pinned down and seeing the hands about to move towards his neck, he instantly fell into a state of intense panic and used up all his points to exchange for attack items.
After shaking off the child, he ran desperately towards the door.
Pei Hongxin, who was well prepared, was even faster. He ran in front of him in a flash, closed the door, and locked the chain with a clang!
It was this one action that completely made the child treat him as one of his own.
All the children got out of bed and walked towards the player barefoot.
The player's forehead was covered with sweat, and he kept repeating: "Calm down, calm down..."
He seemed to finally realize something: "I'm playing with you guys, I——"
It's too late.
Wherever the charred little hand touched, the skin suddenly erupted with pain like a branding iron.
"Help, help..."
A pair of hands covered his mouth, and the smell of burnt barbecue filled the room. The player's facial tissue was forcibly dissolved and sunken.
Pei Hongxin felt a little nauseous and moved to a more ventilated place.
As he screamed with his hands covering his mouth, he received a notification from the game.
You eliminated your competitors.
[But this doesn't mean you are safe. Please stay in harmony with your 'friends' until the adopter arrives tomorrow.]
"Adopter." Pei Hongxin determined his current environment and self-identity.
He is an orphan in an orphanage waiting to be adopted.
Having played the role of a father who lost his beloved son and a generous and kind philanthropist for so many years, Pei Hongxin has always had good acting skills.
He even carefully explores the rules in role-playing.
Do the opposite.
This seems to be a departure from habitual cognition. Take making games as an example. Some things that you think you should reject, instead you need to actively accept.
After carefully spending most of the night with these little monsters, at dawn on the first day, the candles that had made him uneasy all night were extinguished, and Pei Hongxin finally saw the dawn of hope.
Every minute that followed, he was looking forward to the arrival of an adopter, at least to get him out of this horrible orphanage.
"gather!"
A loud whistle sounded, and the woman's awkward voice sounded pleasant to the ears. Pei Hongxin straightened his clothes and walked out before all the children.
Before opening the door, he looked at the charred child lying vacantly on one of the beds. This was the player he had eliminated last night, now completely one of these children.
"Bye now."
Damn little monster, damn orphanage, I can finally leave.
…
In the cold corridor, Wen Shi saw a group of children with extremely uncoordinated limbs staggering towards him. These children were so close to each other that from a distance they looked like charcoal drawings that were almost stuck together. Wen Shi resisted the urge to gasp.
As they got closer, one of the children, who looked remarkably normal, immediately caught his attention. The child's tender face displayed an awkward expression only adults could have.
This face was both familiar and unfamiliar, a completely proportional reduction of Pei Hongxin's facial features.
Wen Shi couldn't contain his surprised expression for a moment.
Pei Hongxin wasn't much better off. The joy he'd felt when he'd come out earlier was gone. His normally calm face was now as if struck by lightning, his pupils trembling for a moment.
It was this change in expression that made Wen Shi certain that Pei Hongxin had not escaped!
How ironic and absurd it was that over a decade later, their identities had been completely swapped. Previously, Wen Shi hadn't known how to deal with Pei Hongxin in a way that would truly relieve the frustration within him. It seemed like no matter what he did, nothing would come close, and no ending would be satisfying enough.
But now, Wen Shi felt refreshed.
So cool!
At least he had a choice back then and could decide on his own which adopter to follow. Now he is the only player left in the "Eagle Staying" chapter, and Pei Hongxin can only be adopted obediently.
He calmed down and asked calmly, "Can I adopt him?"
The woman said coldly, "Those who don't lie are eligible to adopt at will."
Upon hearing this, Wen Shi immediately showed a fatherly smile on his face, and Pei Hongxin subconsciously took a small step back.
In the semi-darkness, Wen Shi took the initiative to open his arms towards him, and his tone was so gentle that water could drip out of it: "Come on, come into daddy's arms."