[{Double Happiness Town} Evaluation: Grade B. Reward: 1000 Points]
Qi Si floated in the darkness, watching the settlement text swirl around him.
The moment he saw the words "Grade B," he barely lifted an eyelid. "Skip."
However, the Weird Game clearly had no intention of listening to him.
To his immense irritation, the notification text continued to refresh.
[{Double Happiness Town} Normal End Cleared. Reward: 1000 Points]
[Worldview Decryption: 73%. Reward: 1000 Points]
[Became the Sole Survivor. Reward: 3000 Points]
[Total Reward: 6000 Points. Deposited into your account.]
The settlement for this instance was rather concise, with no additional achievement unlocks or similar rewards.
Qi Si had learned from the forums that achievement unlocks were contingent on clearing an instance with a True End. Only an evaluation of Grade A or higher could trigger them.
For a Normal End clear with a grade below A, all the rewards were compressed to a pitiful amount, barely more than a consolation prize.
It was a "winner-take-all" system. The gap between players who achieved perfect clears and those who just scraped by would only widen. Points formed a natural chasm, dividing the player base into two distinct groups: the "stars" who challenged high-difficulty instances in the spotlight, and the "expendables" who could be sacrificed or caught in the crossfire at any moment.
As it was now, while Qi Si hadn't exactly been slacking off, his failure to complete the main questline meant his total reward was even lower than what he'd received from the novice-level *Flesh-Eating* instance. From a difficulty-to-reward perspective, this system was grossly unfair.
If he had been the one achieving perfect clears all along, Qi Si wouldn't have seen any issue with this "unfairness." But now that misfortune had befallen him, he couldn't help but ponder the designer's psychology.
"Is this meant to encourage players to actively decipher the worldview? But considering the difficulty, even if many players gave it their all, success wouldn't be guaranteed..."
Qi Si stroked his chin, his gaze falling on the "Became the Sole Survivor" entry.
The reward was 3000 points, accounting for half of his total earnings. Judging by the number, it seemed completely unaffected by the instance's overall evaluation grade.
In fact, had his performance been any worse, the survivor bonus would have become his single most important source of points.
Driven by such a twisted mechanism, a certain portion of players would inevitably conclude that "teammates are easier to deal with than ghosts," and embark on the path of the slaughter-stream. Among the rest, the strong would grow stronger and the weak weaker, gradually forming a more rigid and stable class structure.
Slaughter-stream players would continuously create chaos, while the established powers would be responsible for absorbing these unstable elements. In this way, the Weird Game could achieve an assembly line for producing sin within a stable, controlled environment.
The settlement screen closed after a fifteen-second pause. Qi Si was pleased to see that the upper-right corner of his vision was now empty.
He had thoroughly discarded the persistent Humanoid Evil card; it hadn't followed him back to the game space.
Truth be told, a major reason he had made a deal with his own corpse in the latter half of the instance was to rid himself of this identity card, which had become more of a liability than an asset.
Otherwise, there would have been no need to fake his death and shed his old body. Simply establishing a "Gods Forbidden" contract would have been enough to see him safely through to the end.
Since he had already decided to use the Scarlet High Priest as his main card, there was no reason to hesitate when the opportunity to discard the Humanoid Evil card presented itself.
As for the risks involved in his plan... at worst, it was only death.
The way Qi Si saw it, if he had to continue playing under the watchful eye of Qi, constantly being manipulated and arranged, then dying early would be the more convenient option.
In his item bar at the bottom of his vision, a series of small squares displayed the icons for his pocket watch, rose, recorder, and scepter, in the same order as when he'd entered the instance.
The Ghost Driver's Recorder and Poseidon's Scepter had automatically returned to their slots due to the contract. They had done so silently, but they were there.
Qi Si took out the Poseidon's Scepter.
[Name: Poseidon's Scepter]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: Makes you appear more like a god (The more sin it absorbs, the stronger the effect seems to be)]
Three lines of text popped up before him, identical to the last time he had checked. Not a single word had changed.
The trident was still a trident. A bladed trident...
Expressionlessly, Qi Si tossed the Poseidon's Scepter back into his inventory and navigated to the store.
His current point total was 52,700. It was a high amount for a player who had only cleared five instances, but it was of little use to him.
Unlike other players who would immediately exchange their points for life-saving items, he preferred unique items with interesting mechanics, like the Water Mirror Mask.
The kind he couldn't afford for the time being.
Qi Si browsed through the dazzling array of items before switching to the section that sold instance walkthrough videos. He searched for "Double Happiness Town," spent 10 points on a video of an S-rank True End clear, and fast-forwarded to the end.
The method to achieve the True End was simple: all the players had to go down the well together, bring Xu Wen with them, and follow the coffins out of the world beneath the well on the seventh day.
In the final scenes, the secrets of Double Happiness Town were exposed, causing a public uproar. The Weird Investigation Bureau was forced to dispatch investigators to resolve the situation and rescue the people trapped inside.
Once the supernatural element was broken, the town's residents rapidly aged, their flesh rotting away until only white bones remained. The bodies from the well were retrieved, cremated, and interred in a nearby public cemetery.
[No one has the right to define the value of a life, and no one can demand that others sacrifice themselves. Only when the collective cherishes the well-being of the individual can it safely navigate through every calamity.]
[{Double Happiness Town} True End - "Averting Disaster" has been recorded.]
The video ended there. Qi Si cringed at the unexpectedly cheesy moral, his lips twitching.
What caught his attention was that the player who posted the video had the surname "Xiao," and was named "Xiao Fengchao." The voice was also quite familiar, making him wonder what connection this person had to the "Little Xiao" from his Normal End.
"I have a feeling this 'Weird Investigation Bureau' is probably connected to the real world..."
"Yang Yundong, Chang Xu, and the Kyushu Guild... all these people and factions with their strange behaviors. Could it be that the official federal organization backing them is this very 'Weird Investigation Bureau'?"
On a whim, Qi Si bought nine more of Xiao Fengchao's walkthrough videos, rounding out his point expenditure before exiting the store interface.
The dark background dissolved like mist, and an exquisitely carved bronze desk materialized before him like a sand painting taking form.
Qi Si sat in an archaic high-backed chair. A full-length mirror reflected his image of black hair and red eyes. The influence of the Humanoid Evil card seemed to be irreversible; his appearance still carried an air of the uncanny.
To his right, golden branches flowed like a stream. Two golden leaves hung from them, trembling as they flickered in and out of luminescence.
Qi Si tilted his head slightly, his gaze fixed on the two leaves, lost in thought.
Until the Poseidon's Scepter evolved to a certain point, he had no intention of rashly contacting the Balance Church again.
That church had been growing unchecked for so many years. To them, a "god" was merely a symbol, a banner used to incite the rabble.
How much reverence the people in power truly held for a "god" was a complete mystery. When the time was right, it wouldn't be out of the question for them to simply prop someone up to impersonate their deity.
Qi Si didn't believe in ideals or faith; he only believed in self-interest.
He intended to use Qi's name to direct the Balance Church to do his bidding, but he had no doubt that the moment his "divinity" showed any sign of powerlessness or weakness, it would invite a frenzied backlash of consumption and desecration.
"I still have too few cards in my hand. While Liu Yuhan can guide public opinion on the forums, her own strength is a constant issue. She has no more means of dealing with real-world threats than I do."
"Besides, if something were to happen to me and my control over her weakened, she'd likely be the first one to deliver the finishing blow..."
"Although, given her cowardice and moral code, she probably wouldn't do anything to me directly. At most, she'd post on the forums, exposing everything I've done."
An amusing thought crossed Qi Si's mind. A smile touched his lips as he reached out a fingertip to touch Liu Yuhan's leaf.
The instant he made contact, he was granted a god's-eye view, looking down upon Liu Yuhan's every move from above.
Liu Yuhan was in an instance called {Strange Island}. The light was dim, but he could faintly make out that she was in a cave adorned with sacrificial murals.
A single bonfire burned in the center of the cave, its flame flickering and dancing as if it could be extinguished at any moment.
Six people, both men and women, were scattered around the fire, lying or sitting. They all appeared to be players.
Liu Yuhan sat closest to the flames, her head bowed demurely as she wrote and sketched in a notebook.
Beside her leg, there was a small wooden finger, wrapped in fine threads.
"The Puppet Master again? He's truly relentless..." Qi Si narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
The next second, a bolt of lightning seemed to flash through his mind, and his expression turned strange.
He stared at his item bar, scanning it over and over again.
He checked it repeatedly. There were only four items. The icon of the white finger bone was nowhere to be seen.
Where was the Evil God's Finger Bone? Where in the world was his massive Evil God's Finger Bone?
Could he have left it behind in the *Double Happiness Town* instance?