His dream was shattered, and Su Er smiled bitterly.
The Green Lotus Sage clapped his hands, and waiters, all with rabbit ears, brought round plates to the table. Their faces were covered with white fur, which made their delicate features look indescribably strange when they smiled.
Instead of the bloody meat I'd expected, the table was filled with fresh vegetables. The colors were bright and there was a light fragrance.
The main course is porridge, served with a plate of very thin sesame cakes.
The players' expressions grew even more serious. Since entering the virtual world, everything had been incredibly dull. The host, who always exuded goodwill, was even more unpredictable.
Just as Suer was hesitating whether to pick up his chopsticks, several of the rabbit-eared waiters transformed into the most primitive appearance of rabbits and jumped into the arms of several people present.
"Don't do it," the Green Lotus Sage said before the player could subconsciously resist. "The winner will be eligible to raise a rabbit for one night."
The rabbit stayed in the player's arms for only a moment, then jumped to the ground. In a few breaths, it transformed into an identical person.
The Green Lotus Sage looked at Sur.
"Pass my tip to him." Su Erzhi glanced at Ji Heng.
Qinglian Sage: "Have you thought it through?"
Soul nodded.
The Green Lotus Sage stared at Ji Heng for a few seconds, then suddenly said, "Originally, I should have let you raise the rabbit one night longer than others, but you don't seem to need it."
Pretending to be distressed, he supported his chin and pondered for a moment, then snapped his fingers, and a piece of paper appeared in front of Ji Heng.
The two people next to him subconsciously focused their eyes on the note. Ji Heng did not deliberately cover it and unfolded it directly. The note was blank.
"This is an invaluable item, the kind that can save lives." The Green Lotus Sage smiled and squinted his eyes. "But the instructions for using it must be found in this city."
Ji Heng rubbed the edge of the paper with his fingers and put it away without saying anything.
The host did not force everyone to eat dinner, and considerately said that if they were not used to eating vegetables, they could go to the supermarket and buy something.
Su Er noticed that everyone started to pick up their chopsticks. Since he did not have as much gaming experience as these people, he also picked up two chopsticks at random.
"The guest rooms are above the hotel. You can find them at the front desk with the door card." After the last player put down his chopsticks, the Green Lotus Sage spoke again: "Which room to stay in, who to stay with... decide for yourself. If there's anything urgent, you can call me."
After saying that, he was the first to leave.
Soon, there was a whoosh sound outside, followed by a loud bang, and dazzling fireworks bloomed in the sky.
The players who stayed in the hotel couldn't help but twitch their lips.
"I might as well play a dungeon crawler or something like that." The man who spoke was named Li Zicang. He walked to the beverage area, poured a glass of orange juice, and turned back to ask, "Who wants it?"
Only a few people responded, shaking their heads.
Li Zicang sat back down: "This dungeon is so quiet it's disturbing."
One sentence expresses everyone's thoughts.
There was no life-or-death breaking point, and even losing the first round of the game didn't result in any punishment, making this calm more like the moment before a storm... depressing and suffocating.
The cup was just brought to his lips when it was suddenly snatched away with force, and the juice splashed on the back of his hand.
Li Zicang frowned and held back the curse words he was about to say.
The one who snatched his cup was the rabbit-in-transformation man. He snatched the cup, gulped down the orange juice, and then stood aside calmly.
The rabbit looks exactly like the player, but the color of their eyes is different, making them easy to distinguish.
A female player named Yizhu stood up and also poured herself a glass of juice, but the rabbit next to her didn't come to grab it. It seemed that only the rabbit that had transformed into Li Zicang's appearance had a penchant for snatching food.
Ji Heng walked to the front desk without saying a word.
All the door cards are placed in a basket for players to take easily.
The guest rooms are on the fourth floor and above, so Ji Heng chose the fourth floor. He turned around and looked at Suer, hinting with his eyes.
Suer followed, and so did the rabbit Ji Heng.
"Wait." Yizhu came over and said in a very soft voice, "Tomorrow the weather will be very beautiful and the flowers will bloom."
At first glance, this statement makes no sense.
When Yizhui spoke, she deliberately turned her back to 'Rabbit Ji Heng'. Suer immediately understood her intention. This was to establish a secret code with the players who owned the rabbit to prevent someone from being replaced by the rabbit the next day.
The elevator door opened, Ji Heng nodded slightly, and walked in first.
Su Er observed Rabbit Ji Heng carefully. He could not see any emotion in his eyes. He deliberately told two jokes, but his eyes remained calm. It was as if these things were not funny to him, but he did not scold them for being boring.
He stretched out a finger, itching to poke the soft-looking face. Before doing so, he asked Ji Heng, "Will it bite?"
Ji Heng looked at him deeply, and at this moment, the elevator door opened.
The corridor was covered with a red carpet over ten meters long, with green potted plants placed at intervals. The lights were bright. As Ji Heng swiped his card, Su Er looked around. "It doesn't look strange at all. It really feels like a vacation."
It has a standard double room configuration.
Sur was most interested in the note and asked what was so special about it.
"It's just an ordinary piece of paper."
Ji Heng had no reason to lie to him. Su Er frowned and asked, "Was he tricked by the host?"
It's illogical. Using a piece of torn paper to pretend it can save lives is not something a typical host would use such a low-level method.
Ji Heng smiled and said nothing.
It gets dark later in Nongxu, and night falls only after Su Er finishes washing up. Standing before Rabbit Ji Heng, arms folded, they remain lost in thought. Both of them remain motionless, like stiff wooden figures.
Now that there were no outsiders around, after a brief silence, Su Er began to describe in detail the scene of walking out of Nongxu during the day. After he finished speaking, he stretched out his arms and fell back on the bed: "I can't figure it out."
The cold ceiling could not bring any inspiration, so he tilted his head and looked at Ji Heng.
"You don't need to look for hope..." Ji Heng stood by the window and repeated what the Green Lotus Sage had said, his eyes obscure and unclear: "I roughly know what order is being disrupted."
Suer blinked, sat up with a somersault, fully demonstrating the toughness of his waist, and stared at him straight.
"We need to confirm this." Ji Heng: "First, let's find where the surveillance footage is stored."
It was a moderately complex project, starting from the front desk computer and working my way up, layer by layer. I bumped into other players several times along the way, but none of them asked any further questions as they were busy with other things.
Su Er didn't like playing dumb, so he nudged the person next to him with his elbow and said, "Can't we talk while walking?"
Ji Heng: "This period of time is used to prepare you mentally."
Soul responded seriously: "A math problem can calm me down."
Unfortunately, there are no questions for him to do now, so he can only memorize pi.
Rabbit Ji Heng was walking silently behind, and seemed to be unable to bear the noise, so he slowed down his pace.
It was easier to search floor by floor by climbing the stairs. By the time they reached the ninth floor, Soul was feeling thirsty. Luck finally showed up, and they found several computers in the second-to-last room in the hallway.
There were a man and a woman standing inside. The man was Wanyi, and he had no impression of the woman Suer. After taking a look at the name tag, he found that they had the same surname, Su Tangyi.
Su Tangyi smiled and said, "I am the fake Su, and you are the real Su."
The kind of Su who has the aura of a protagonist.
Su Er said frankly: "If you and I were to enter a copy called the Book of Answers together, this conclusion would be overturned."
Except for him, everyone else was followed by rabbit simulators, making the small space seem a bit crowded.
Su Tangyi's rabbit man loves to play pranks. If anyone passes by her, she will stretch out her foot to trip them.
At this time, Wan Yi took the initiative to give up his seat. Ji Heng sat on the chair and watched the replay of tonight bit by bit, including the scene after the player entered the elevator.
Su Tangyi, who had already read it once, said at the right moment: "Every bunnyman has a different personality."
The one in Lizicang behaved most obviously. It loved to fight for food and would not let go of any leftovers.
"Cheating reveals weirdness everywhere." Wan Yi spread his hands.
Ji Heng's hand never left the mouse, and he said without looking up, "Nongxu is just the name of the dungeon. This city is called the City of Hope."
He suddenly emphasized the name of the city, which made Wanyi stunned for a moment. However, Su Tangyi seemed to have thought of something bad, and the smile on her lips gradually faded.
"I'll go back to my room first." After a while, her face looked a little ugly and she hurried out the door.
Suer noticed that the other party leaned against the wall when he turned around, as if he was quite stimulated.
Ji Heng was too cunning. Wan Yi thought about it and caught up with Su Tangyi from behind, as if he wanted to find a way out of her situation.
Ji Heng read some details almost frame by frame, and stood up after twenty minutes: "Let's go."
On the way, Sul was thinking about the purpose of coming to the monitoring room. At that time, Ji Heng's eyes were not only focused on the rabbit man on the screen, but also on the corresponding players. He was probably making some kind of analogy.
He kept his head down the whole way and unknowingly found himself standing outside the room. The moment Ji Heng swiped the door card, he said, "A long time ago, major organizations compiled a list of people who entered the fraud, trying to find common ground among them."
The first thing Suer did after entering the room was to drink some water to ease the pain from climbing the stairs. He then asked, "What did you find?"
"The key point isn't the individuals, but the number," Ji Heng said, taking the water he handed over. "The lists from the past three years combined only have fewer than thirty people."
Su Er was stunned. There were 22 players entering the game this time alone, almost catching up with the total number of players in the past few years.
"The fortune teller said earlier that Nongxu will open soon, and the host is busy handing out tickets." He felt a pang of regret. "According to that statement, many people have entered Nongxu in previous years."
As they spoke, they gradually realized something was wrong. The Green Lotus Sage admitted that the survival rate was high, proving that many players had indeed walked out of the trap alive.
"There's only one reason for not remembering: the game has tampered with some of their memories." Ji Heng leaned back against the table, his eyes slightly lowered. "It made the players forget those who got the tickets and walked out of the fraud alive."
This speculation sounds full of hope. According to the better scenario, players who leave the game will completely break free from the control of the game and live a normal life from then on.
But a chill slowly crept into Sur's heart. It was an indescribable complex feeling, as if he was trapped in a soft and sticky spider web and had to be exposed to a predator.
Ji Heng suddenly asked: "Do you remember Xu He?"
Suer nodded. He remembered Xu He very clearly. In their last confrontation, the other party had whispered some strange words into his ear.
"Some players are destined to die in that dungeon."
"One day you will encounter your own inevitable death."
Gloomy, helpless, and disappointed.
There are so many emotions mixed between the lines.
The memory came to an abrupt end, and Su Er suddenly stood up from the bed: "City of Hope... the reason why it is called this name..."
Ji Heng nodded: "Here, you can find clues about the inevitable death situation."
After a moment of contemplation, he said, "I've researched Xu He's information. He's a police officer in real life, but in the dungeon, he's a drug trafficker. As for Qu Qingming, she's a model in real life, but in the dungeon, the mysterious eyes you see are actually a very ugly woman."
The copy and the real world are two completely different lives.
Su Er's eyelashes trembled. One of the worlds must be false, but judging from the fact that he would unconsciously write the wrong name, it was obvious which world was real.
Silence began to spread in the room.
Ji Heng said with a hint of sarcasm: "The real us should have been living in some dungeon world."
One day, when they return to that world as players to complete missions, they will face the so-called death situation.
Su Er quickly calmed down: "There is a way to escape from this doomed situation alive by hiding it in the deception..."
He suddenly stopped talking mid-sentence.
order.
The two words suddenly popped up in his mind, and for the first time, Su Er was completely unable to conceal his expression.
"The Death Stage is undoubtedly the most difficult dungeon," Ji Heng said, unable to speak out due to shock. "The normal order is to continuously complete dungeons. If you can survive, you will eventually enter the Void and face the Death Stage."
Sur opened his mouth, wanting him to stop talking, but ultimately chose to remain silent.
Ji Heng sighed: "My surname is Zhou, I hate rules, and I can't feel sad about my parents' death..."
"No crossing."
Su Er closed his eyes and took the initiative to say these two words.
In Wu Du's dungeon world, family ties were weak, rules were everywhere, and everyone was required to maintain a certain uniformity in their words and deeds. He still remembered the young man who gave a speech on the roadside and was proud of having half his arm broken by his parents for refusing to study as a child.
"Li" and "Zhou" happen to be two big surnames in the town.
Thinking of this, Su Er took a deep breath.
Like Xu He and Qu Qingming, he lived a completely different life in the real world. Before his second year of high school, he was loved by his parents and had a happy family. He was not subject to complicated rules and regulations, and everyone followed the law.
"I don't know what method your classmate used to mess up the order and sent you straight into a dead end after the novice field." Ji Heng: "You were just a newcomer at the time, and all your stats were very low."
According to the rules of the copy operation, the game will adjust the difficulty of the copy according to the player's strength.
If a player enters the cheating game on a ten-point scale, they'll have a minimum of seven points, and a sure-win game can be several times more difficult than seven. Sur was different. When he first left the novice field, he was practically a blank slate, with a maximum strength of one point, giving him a natural advantage from the start.
"Wu Du abides by the rules, but you are good at finding loopholes, and you have an electric shock device on you as a life-saving tool."
Su Er smiled and said, "Besides, you were a teammate at that time."
The seriousness dissipated a lot, and Ji Heng's mouth curled up slightly: "The time, the place, and the people are all right. It's all in place."
Rubbing his fingers along the edge of his badge, Soul sighed softly, "That's why games don't hesitate to give out achievement points. Even the City of Hope doesn't have the hope I'm looking for."
He had safely overcome the inevitable death situation shortly after the game started.