Probability is an ordinary yet mysterious force.
It runs through the very fabric of life, yet it also seems inextricably linked to the ultimate answers of the universe.
In an ideal scenario, the probability of flipping a single coin one hundred times and getting fifty heads is the same as flipping one hundred coins simultaneously and having fifty of them land on heads.
The former is a linear concept of time, the latter a planar concept of space. Through the nexus of probability, time and space merge in a subtle, fascinating way. How could that not be a wondrous thing?
Ever since becoming an official player, Qi Si had recognized the unique nature of "probability" within the Weird Game.
His skill, Soul Contract, had an initial success rate of 20%, determined by rolling two ten-sided dice and seeing if the total exceeded 80.
In truth, the determination could have been changed to picking one of twenty designated numbers, with a successful roll on any of them counting as a success; the effect would be identical. The description of "rolling high" was likely just to make it easier for players to understand.
Just as now, with Soul Contract's success rate increased to 23%, a roll greater than 77 was a success. This could also be understood as needing to hit any one of twenty-three random numbers.
After the *Hopeless Sea* instance, Qi Si had acquired a great deal of information and came to realize that "probability" was a constant throughout the game.
Lu Li's "Gift of Akeso" had a 10% success rate, Ye Linsheng's "Code of Hammurabi" had a 10% success rate, and so on.
Tracing this back to the novice instances, the side quest on the third floor of *Rose Manor* featured the "Three-Door Problem." If Chang Xu hadn't simply brute-forced his way through, Qi Si would have had to find a way to gamble on that two-thirds probability of survival.
This wasn't a test of intelligence, but a test of luck. Luck meant variables. It might add a certain dramatic flair to events, but it often made their development uncontrollable.
It was a known fact that in the Weird Game's official pool, the ratio of "slaughter-stream" players to ordinary players had always remained stable at one to four. A game governed by pure probability could never produce such a stable ratio unless an external force was interfering.
In that case, probability became a plaything for some higher-dimensional existence to manipulate at will. If it wanted a player to succeed, they would succeed; if it wanted a player to die, they would die.
This might be the game's fundamental method of maintaining balance, but it was something that could never be brought into the open. An unfair game could never inspire players to give their all. Once this "unfairness" became common knowledge, chaos and rebellion would be inevitable.
One of the key points of Qi Si's plan was a gamble—a bet that the existence behind the Weird Game was just as averse to trouble as he was and didn't want anything to disrupt the stability.
The other key point was built on the theory that "probability can be fixed."
The Weird Game had told him that a 20% success rate was defined as: "out of one hundred attempts, there will be exactly twenty successful outcomes."
In the *Hopeless Sea* instance, Lu Li had used up his items in advance, fixing the success rate of all probability-based items at 0%, thereby creating a smokescreen of pseudo-randomness.
What Qi Si needed to do was the opposite: "consume" the failure rate through multiple failed skill activations to produce a single, one-hundred-percent guaranteed success.
In the early hours of the previous day, upon realizing Xu Wen was dead, Qi Si had a bad feeling.
In the silence, with only him awake, he looked up into the dark void and murmured to himself, "In an experiment with a limited number of trials and a fixed outcome, the specific data can be reverse-engineered. A 23% success rate means that as long as I fail seventy-seven times, the seventy-eighth attempt is guaranteed to be a success."
"And if the seventy-eighth attempt also fails—" Qi Si paused deliberately, a ghostly smile playing on his lips, "either you've labeled the probability incorrectly, or you've been rigging the game. Neither scenario looks particularly good for your credibility, does it?"
Whether the presence in the void heard his threat, he didn't know, nor did he particularly care.
He had prepared a series of clauses the Weird Game would absolutely never allow, such as "clear the instance immediately," "destroy this instance," and "annihilate the game," and would roll the dice whenever he had a spare moment.
In the second before he descended into the well, Qi Si had just rolled the dice for the seventy-seventh time. All failures.
Whether the seventy-eighth attempt would succeed was the lynchpin of his entire plan, and... whether he could clear this instance successfully.
If he succeeded, everyone would be happy. If he failed, Qi Si would be well and truly finished in this instance.
—He would use the half-hour of post-instance time to leave his last words, entrusting Liu Yuhan with crucial information to spread, detonating the player community.
Qi Si knew with cold clarity that he had been backed into a corner. Every decision was like walking a tightrope, betting on an extremely low probability where the slightest deviation would lead to utter ruin. And yet, that "extremely low probability" was, perversely, the best option available.
He felt a sense of release. If a god of the same standing as Qi wanted him dead, and was willing to go to such lengths and put on such a grand show, then dying in this instance wouldn't be an injustice.
So, with the mindset of someone about to have one last wild fling before death, he activated Soul Contract for the seventy-eighth time.
At that moment, Qi Si asked his own corpse, "It's still early. Interested in signing a contract?"
The corpse cracked a stiff smile, its eyes fixed on him.
Qi Si tilted his head back slightly and enunciated each word, "After I die, gods are forbidden from this instance."
The corpse repeated with a hollow grin, "After you die, gods are forbidden from this instance."
Wisps of crimson smoke rose and swirled, coalescing in the void into an ethereal scroll. Golden script struggled to etch itself onto the surface.
With every stroke, every line, beads of blood dripped from the scroll's edge, dissolving into a hazy mist just before they touched the ground.
Qi Si's face was ashen, like a ghost's, as if the scroll were being forged from his very blood, every inch of it searing his soul.
Suffocation and pain washed over him. Two opposing forces waged war with his spirit and flesh as their battlefield—one tearing him apart, the other trying to piece him back together.
On the system interface, large, bloody characters were scrawled hastily:
[An unspeakably great existence has glanced at you. Your skill "Soul Contract" has changed.]
The notification window related to Soul Contract popped up uncontrollably, trembling as it appeared. Countless translucent boxes stacked on top of each other, like the error messages on a virus-infected computer.
Qi Si felt as if a thousand steel needles were piercing his brain from every angle. His vision was a thin, blood-red film. He had to blink several times before he could finally make out the text in the notification.
[Name: Soul Contract]
[Effect: You may propose a contract with any existence. Once a contract is established, no existence may refuse to fulfill its obligations.]
[Note: Can only be used three times per instance. Exceeding this limit will cause the player to transform into a ghost.]
Seeing the final line, which had clearly been added in a hurry, Qi Si smiled without a sound. "That's more like it."
He had been wondering why, after thirty-six years, no other player had thought of this simple method of "consuming" the failure rate.
Reviewing his own experiences, he realized that other players' skills had usage limits. The "Strange Talk Notebook" could only be used four times in an instance; the "Puppet Master" could only control three players and parasitize one new one per instance.
—But his "Soul Contract" had no usage limit.
There wasn't even a real penalty for failure. In theory, he could use it an infinite number of times.
He didn't know if it was a bug in the Weird Game's design or if Qi had pulled some strings for him, but he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Of course, looking at it now, everything seemed preordained.
He could only exploit this loophole once, and he was forced to use this precious opportunity just to survive an evil god's attack. After this, the rules would patch the vulnerability, leveling the playing field for all players again.
Qi Si even suspected this might have been part of Qi's calculations all along: first, give him a means of survival, then use the authority of the contract to lure out some rival evil god...
As for what benefits Qi could gain from this, that was beyond the current Qi Si's comprehension.
Qi Si lowered his head, watching intently as the words "gods are forbidden" tremblingly solidified on the bloody scroll. Only then did he let out a soft breath. He looked up at his corpse and recited new terms: "After I die, you will become me, inheriting all my thoughts, memories, emotions, and behavioral choices."
"At this moment, I willingly relinquish all items and skills in my possession. After you leave this instance as a player, you will regain them."
Qi Si paused, tilting his head with a slightly mischievous smile. "I'm not sure if you're really 'me,' but that's not important, is it?"
"If you are human, then survive the ghosts. If you are a ghost, then hunt humans alongside them. Perhaps because you'll be wearing the 'skin' of a ghost, those humans might even find it perfectly natural for you to kill them. After all, they’ve always been contradictory creatures, quick to indulge monsters and demand perfection from their own kind."
"Finally, I hope you have fun!"
Qi Si found himself amused by his own uncharacteristic words of blessing.
He bent over, clutching his stomach, unable to suppress a burst of laughter. Seeing this, the corpse began to laugh wildly along with him.
The identical peals of laughter intertwined, echoing eerily in the narrow confines of the well, lingering long after.
And amidst the laughter, two ten-sided dice clattered to a stop.
—Two "10s." 100 points. A critical success!
...
In the pitch-black night, the young man retracted the blade. The warm blood on his fingertips dispelled some of the chill.
Inhaling the scent of blood, he watched with cold eyes as Shang Qingbei collapsed, his own eyes wide with disbelief, and was instantly swallowed by a tide of ghosts.
Once he was certain Shang Qingbei was dead beyond any doubt, he began to study the changes in his own vision.
First, in the upper-left corner of his sight, a light gray system interface had appeared. It was completely blank, without even a summary of the current instance, looking like a simple program that had just been rebooted after a crash.
Next, at the very bottom of his vision, the item bar appeared, with icons for the items he had on him, like the [Fate Pocket Watch] and [Rose Heart], materializing one by one.
...And that was it.
The good news was he had finally gotten rid of that damn[Humanoid Evil]identity card. He would no longer have to worry about being watched by an evil god while playing the game.
The bad news was that the [Ghost Driver's Recorder] and the [Poseidon's Scepter], two items stored in his inventory rather than carried on his person, had vanished without a trace.
He couldn't sense the existence of the "Soul Contract" skill either.
The young man's expression soured for a moment before he quickly composed himself.
Although losing half of his important items was unsettling, the contract had specified that he would "regain them" after leaving the instance.
Whether that would actually happen was something he would only find out upon clearing the instance.
"From now on, I am Qi Si," the young man stated calmly, raising a hand to his chest. He felt no heartbeat.
He was clearly still in a ghostly state. Although the system interface was back and he now possessed Qi Si's memories from the world in the well, including the confrontation with the god, whether he was currently a player or a ghost was a question best left to Schrödinger.
Qi Si didn't have much attachment to being human, nor did he feel a strong sense of belonging or identification with the human race.
When you were human, you avoided being hunted by ghosts. When you were a ghost, you avoided being hunted by exorcists. It was a simple enough concept. The only complication was—
His body was still in the Weird Game. If he was classified as a "ghost," he would probably be trapped in this instance, unable to leave.
Double Happiness Town might be large for an instance, but it was far too small compared to a world. Qi Si felt that if he were truly forced to live in this godforsaken place for ten or twenty years, he would absolutely go insane.
"Hmm, I killed Shang Qingbei, Liu Bingding is most likely dead, and Du Xiaoyu probably won't last long. 'Li Yao' is an NPC, so she doesn't count. According to the minimum death count mechanic, I have to survive whether I want to or not."
"Any change to a single detail, especially to a core rule affecting the balance of power, can cause massive upheaval. I hope the Weird Game isn't tasteless enough to just randomly revive someone."
Qi Si's fingers tapped idly against his leg. A few drops of blood soaked into his black trousers, barely visible.
The sorrowful wail of a suona horn echoed mournfully. Wisps of red mist spread like a light gauze, and Xu Yao's figure flickered in and out of view within it.
She was dressed in an elaborate red wedding gown, her pale, bluish face touched with a faint blush. She didn't look terrifying, only alluringly beautiful—the very image of the Joy Goddess from the temple.
Beside her, there was no sign of Du Xiaoyu.
The cognitive distortion effect had been lifted, and Qi Si easily recalled how she had replaced Li Yao and infiltrated the group of players.
The mysteries were being unraveled one by one. In a typical cliché plot, this either meant someone was about to die, or the instance was about to end.
Qi Si leaned against a wall and asked with a smile, "Is Du Xiaoyu dead?"
"He's dead." Xu Yao also smiled, but her smile held no warmth. The way she looked at Qi Si was like she was looking at a corpse.
Qi Si paid it no mind. "It seems I'll be able to leave here alive, then. Is there anything you want to tell me?"
Xu Yao retorted, "What is it you want to know?"
Qi Si lifted his gaze to her. "For instance, why you've occupied this town, killing anyone who wanders in."
Xu Yao giggled, a sound like tinkling silver bells that gave her a girlish charm.
"We were trapped at the bottom of the well for too long, so when He offered to help us leave, I agreed to His deal. As long as I do my best to kill everyone who comes to this town, in a hundred years, I and all the girls trapped here can be resurrected. Even if I can't leave myself, just being able to help them get out is worth it to me."
Qi Si asked coolly, "Have you ever considered that the number of people you're killing now might already exceed the number you'll be able to save in the future?"
"Heh, and what if it does?" Xu Yao laughed mockingly. "Most of the people I kill are men who deserve to die anyway. The few women are just like those foul men, meddling in things that don't concern them, trying to save them. They're better off dead!"
Her eyes simmered with undisguised venom and cruelty. She seemed utterly convinced of her own logic.
Qi Si nodded as if enlightened, a thick smile on his lips. "Using adversarial thinking to divide a race into different groups, sacrificing one group's lives for another's... a very twisted form of utilitarianism. Interesting."
"But it's effective," Xu Yao replied, her expression unchanged.
Qi Si shook his head and sighed. "That just shows you still think of yourself as a human. Does a ghost need a reason to kill? It's not killing that requires a reason, is it? To be honest, I quite liked Xu Wen's perspective. You kill them simply because you're stronger than them."
Xu Yao's eyes widened. She stared at Qi Si as if he were insane, just short of asking, "Who's the ghost here, me or you?"
Seeing the woman's shocked expression, Qi Si knew she was incapable of understanding his peculiar sense of humor. A feeling of solitary loneliness washed over him, and his interest waned.
He stroked the Fate Pocket Watch on his wrist and changed the subject. "By the way, in all the time since you died, have you ever seen 'him' again?"
At his words, a look of urgency and grievance crossed Xu Yao's face. "You've seen him? Where is he?"