“If the total number of survivors is fixed, then for me to live, someone else must die. I might even have to kill innocent people just to eliminate potential threats... Under those circumstances, what’s the right choice?”
“Who’s been feeding you that garbage? Instead of wasting time mulling over that, you’d be better off memorizing walkthroughs and sharpening your problem-solving skills.”
“So, what’s the answer to the question?”
“There is no answer. You just follow your gut. Next time someone asks you something like that, just slap them twice and see if they still feel like spouting nonsense.”
“...”
Weird Investigation Bureau, Jiang City Branch.
Ning Xu left the medical wing and walked straight to the end of the corridor, turning into a small, rarely visited room.
The sign on the door, reading “Archives,” was covered in a thin layer of dust, but upon pushing the door open, the interior was clean and tidy.
A massive monitor refreshed with real-time updates from the game forums. A constant stream of interaction records scrolled across the screen, with comments containing specific keywords singled out and highlighted in red as a program automatically began analyzing the posters’ IP addresses.
Many people who encounter supernatural events believe themselves to be the protagonists of a story, or at the very least, one of the few who have transcended the mundane. But unfortunately for them, from the very moment these “protagonists” touched the extraordinary, they were bathed in the Federation’s watchful gaze.
“The Federation is watching you.” The phrase was once the alarmist cry of a novelist, but with the advancement of technology, reality had not only caught up but surpassed it.
With the further implementation of real-name registration online, virtually anyone who left a digital footprint entered the official purview of the Federation, living under the gaze of this behemoth.
Since its establishment in 2008, the Weird Investigation Bureau had relied on the power of law enforcement to operate in the real world.
Thanks to the Federation’s vast information database, the Bureau quickly identified the first batch of players, made contact with them in reality, and took control of the largest forum for discussing the Weird Game. Using this as a foundation, they absorbed other smaller forums that players had created on their own.
From then on, the Bureau leveraged the game forums—this information giant—to both manage its public image and guide public opinion, while simultaneously monitoring player activities for timely containment.
There was a saying that hit the nail on the head: “If we can’t get you in the game, a single bullet in the real world will do the trick, won’t it?”
Through such decisive actions, the Bureau rapidly gained significant influence over the Weird Game. They also conducted a large-scale recall of game qualifications, selecting elite personnel from the military to voluntarily enter the game and become players, using their actions and ideals to inspire more and more people.
Countless players spoke endlessly of unity and cooperation. Even in the worst situations, harming others was never their first choice—partly out of fear of retribution from the Kyushu Guild after leaving an instance, and partly because they trusted that Kyushu members would come to their rescue.
Yes, in its early days, the Weird Game was far gentler than it is now. Veteran players could spend points to enter ongoing instances and extract newcomers, and rookies could purchase items mid-instance to help them survive critical moments.
The average monthly death toll in the Weird Game once dropped to double digits. It was like the calm before the storm, or perhaps the indulgence of some higher-dimensional being toward a child.
In this peaceful environment, guilds like Sila and the Balance Church, which thrived on peddling fear, were like rats in a sewer, universally despised.
Just as the Bureau was on the verge of gathering over a hundred thousand players to challenge the Final Instance and shatter the game’s ultimate rules, the calendar turned to January 1, 2014.
It was the fifteenth anniversary of the game’s arrival. Players had gathered before the black tower in the Sunset Ruins, and the then-president of the Kyushu Guild was preparing to deliver another speech.
The sky, once a dim yellow, suddenly erupted in a brilliant golden light, inexplicably evoking images of a star’s explosion at the dawn of the universe.
Crimson streams of fire rained down from above, crashing into the earth—a land gnarled with the roots of a giant tree—like meteorites. Upon impact, they unleashed towering flames that spread in all directions like molten lava.
Some players reacted quickly enough to log out of the game. Others hesitated for a few seconds too long and were engulfed in the sea of fire, burned to ashes.
Screams and death became a grim symphony. For a time, the Sunset Ruins transformed into a living hell.
Based on the final words left by the deceased within that half-hour and the recollections of survivors, many claimed to have seen the corpses of the legendary “gods.”
Although their descriptions of these “gods” were wildly varied and contradictory, no different from the ravings of madmen, the Bureau internally designated the event as the “Twilight of the Gods.”
Afterward, the Weird Game underwent a month-long period of “server maintenance,” during which the Bureau scrambled to assess its losses.
More than half of its investigators were lost. The core members of the Kyushu Guild had been on-site attempting to save people and were almost completely wiped out. The player base was devastated, its morale shattered. Without immediate intervention, it was feared they would never recover.
When the players re-entered the game, they discovered to their despair that many of the mechanisms designed to lower survival difficulty had been altered, and a host of baffling new features had been added.
In the months that followed, after enduring one brutally difficult instance after another, the Bureau finally realized the truth: the Weird Game was intentionally targeting them...
For more than a decade since, the Bureau had been forced to scale back its influence within the game, retreating to the real world to guide from behind the scenes and shifting its focus to dealing with Weird Invasion events.
Meanwhile, organizations like Sila and the Balance Church, having been suppressed in the real world, shifted their efforts to expanding their power within the game. As one waned, the other waxed.
Eventually, a balance was struck.
...
Ning Xu glanced at the computer screen, at the list of dangerous comments made by users with Jiang City IPs that had been compiled and sent over. She lifted an eyelid, unconcerned.
Most of these people were all talk. The moment they were approached, they’d tremble like a leaf in the rain. The real big fish either used virtual addresses or rarely said anything at all.
The only players the Bureau truly needed to monitor were those who had cleared a few specific, unusual instances, such as *The Dialectic Game* and *Double Happiness Town*.
As Ning Xu walked past the desk, the investigator responsible for monitoring the forums looked up and greeted her. “Hey, Sister Ning Xu. You’re here.”
“Mhm, I’m here to log the latest update.”
Ning Xu walked to a metal wall filled with drawers, expertly used her fingerprint to open one, and retrieved the electronic tablet stored inside. She entered a line of text: “Monitored subject’s deviation level at 6%. No psychological intervention required at this time.”
While physical injuries from instances couldn't be brought into reality, the mental and psychological damage was very real. In the thirty-six years since the Weird Game’s arrival, it was common for veteran players to devolve into slaughter-stream killers and for investigators to lose control and go insane.
The Weird Investigation Bureau had gradually developed a comprehensive system of supervision and self-assessment, constantly monitoring the mental health of its investigators to ensure timely containment of dangerous individuals.
For someone like Chang Xu, who had nearly died in an instance and had barely scraped by, an increase in his deviation level was inevitable. How much it rose depended entirely on his mental fortitude.
Of course, it was said that this sort of thing was also related to intelligence.
Ning Xu had more than once thought, half-jokingly, “Ignorance is bliss. The simpler the mind, the less you overthink, and the easier it is to bounce back from negative emotions.” After leaving the game, Chang Xu had been unconscious in the real world for five days. He had barely started to recover before being pulled in for debriefing. After all that, Ning Xu had only just gotten a chance to see him.
During their conversation, Ning Xu felt that Chang Xu was hiding something. However, she trusted his character. Since he was unwilling to share certain details, pressing him would only be counterproductive.
Chang Xu, in the words of the Bureau’s top brass, was a sharp blade. Used correctly, he was a valuable tool. Even if his full potential couldn’t be realized, it was imperative that he never be allowed to slip out of their control.
And so, just after sending her previous monitored subject to the containment facility, Ning Xu had immediately gone to the orphanage to pick up Chang Xu.
At first, she had treated him as a grave threat, but she soon discovered that his world was as simple as a blank sheet of paper. He lacked a great deal of common sense and knowledge. To put it simply, he was quite easy to fool.
Faced with such a person, even Ning Xu herself sometimes felt that the Bureau was being overly anxious.
“Sister Ning Xu, the Listening Wind Guild sent another alert,” the investigator at the computer said without looking up. “‘The Door’ has definitely appeared.”
Ning Xu hummed in acknowledgment and smiled. “We’ll wait for the director’s orders. A matter this big isn’t for us to decide.”
She gave a noncommittal answer, closed and locked the drawer, and walked out of the archives without a backward glance.
She wandered aimlessly down the corridor, eventually finding herself next to the only window on the entire floor.
It was less a window and more a small opening, barely a hand’s breadth across. It was unclear whether it was for ventilation or the result of some long-forgotten accident.
The opening had never been sealed, and it always offered a view of the world outside the building, so many investigators liked to stand here for a moment when they had free time.
Ning Xu paused, her gaze drifting outside.
A black cat was perched on a forked branch, its eyes fixed on a bird’s nest in the shrubbery below. The spotted dove in the nest, oblivious to the approaching danger, was contentedly preening its feathers, completely unaware.
Ning Xu couldn’t help but chuckle. For a moment, she wanted to throw something out—either to chase away the cat or to startle the bird. But then she thought, a cat hunting a bird is part of the food chain. What right did she, a human, have to interfere?
The communicator on her hip suddenly buzzed. The person on the other end spoke: “Ning Xu, the plan you proposed last time has been approved by the higher-ups. You’ll be in full charge. But... if anything goes wrong, you’ll also bear the primary responsibility.”
“No problem. I understand,” Ning Xu said calmly, then turned and walked toward the elevator at the far end of the hall.
...
Weird Investigation Bureau, fifth basement level. Cold metal rooms lined the sides of a maze-like corridor, each door marked with a number and text.
Ning Xu counted the rows of numbers, stopping in front of a door labeled [129].
Basic information was displayed in the top-left corner of the door.
[Weird Name: Pseudo-human]
[Type: Ghost (?)]
[Danger Level: E]
[Remarks: Possesses human memories and self-identifies as human; simultaneously exhibits basic characteristics of a weird entity, such as immortality, pica, and infectiousness. Has a good affinity with other weird entities and can sense the location of higher-level threats. Currently shows no intention of actively attacking humans.]
Through the electronic screen on the door, she could see the activity inside. A young girl with disheveled hair was lying on the floor like a wild animal, motionless. It was impossible to tell if she was alive or dead.
Ning Xu donned a protective suit and entered the room.
Sensing someone’s arrival, the girl startled awake and pleaded with a voice as thin as a thread:
“Please, let me out... I really cleared *The Dialectic Game*. I’m really human...”
“I’m Zhang Yiyu, a student from the 30th class of Liu City University’s literature department. My mother is Zhang Haiyan. She’s divorced from my dad, and I’m all she has left...”
“I’m begging you, at least let me make a phone call to her...”
Ning Xu walked over and helped the girl up from the floor, comforting her gently. “I believe you’re human.”
She took an iron ball from her pocket and handed it to the girl, her voice coaxing. “Eat this, and I’ll let you go.”
As if grasping a lifeline, the girl snatched the iron ball and shoved it into her mouth.
Ning Xu took a few subtle steps back, her cold eyes fixed on her.
After ten seconds of dead silence, the girl had swallowed the iron ball. She looked up at Ning Xu and asked plaintively, “Officer, I ate it. Can you let me go now?”
Ning Xu looked down at her, a flash of pity in her eyes. “Do you still think you’re human? A normal person would have died in agony after swallowing a piece of metal that large.”
The girl froze as if waking from a dream, her already pale face turning even paler. She frantically tore open her own stomach and rummaged through her intestines amidst a cloud of black smoke. She found the iron ball and threw it far away.
She curled into a ball, muttering in self-deception, “I didn’t eat it, I didn’t eat it... I’m human, I’m really human...”
“Didn’t I already promise you? I will let you go.” Ning Xu sighed and moved closer again, lifting the girl’s face with an almost affectionate touch. “Whether you’re human or a monster, what does it truly matter?”
The girl’s eyes widened in disbelief as the gentle woman before her continued, “Join us as a monster. Re-enter the Weird Game, and I will grant you the greatest freedom my authority allows.”
“You’ll be able to contact your mother once a month. We will tell her that you’ve been working for a confidential Federation department during your disappearance.”
“I think your mother will be very proud of you.”