Qi Si sat on the edge of the bed, toying with the black character card.
Scenes of Hansen flashed before his eyes, each one corresponding perfectly with the card’s description.
[He doesn’t fit in...]
Hansen was the only one who specialized in combat, and the only one who didn’t take notes.
[He is repulsive...]
Hansen had started making baseless accusations from the very beginning, and his abrasive manner certainly didn’t win him any friends.
[His death was hasty and absurd...]
Indeed. Hansen had little room to struggle before the players voted him out, their decision absolute. No one listened to his defense, no one offered any sympathy. The desire to see him dead was nearly unanimous.
Qi Si had been under the impression that he had orchestrated the players' focus on Hansen entirely of his own volition, a choice made freely. To have a "Fodder Card" suddenly pop up and claim it was all a predetermined outcome was... grating.
“It’s possible this character card was generated according to the plot only after Hansen’s death. But if the words on it were written in advance, then things get interesting.”
“Every player in this instance has a role. Hansen’s was ‘fodder.’ Does that mean there are also protagonists, supporting characters, villains, and so on?”
Qi Si stroked his chin, a faint sense of unease creeping over him.
He knew this instance was a play, and every play has a script.
Though he didn’t know where the script was or what it contained, he understood the conventions of classic drama. The ending was almost certainly "the protagonist defeats the villain and achieves final victory."
Qi Si disliked following a pre-written plot. More importantly, he was self-aware enough to know that a character like him was unlikely to be cast as the protagonist.
After all... he wasn't exactly protagonist material.
“So who could the protagonist be? Dong Xiwen seems likely, but He Hui is also a possibility... I wonder if they can be killed. Is there some kind of ‘protagonist invincibility law’ in effect...?”
Qi Si slipped the character card into his pocket and leaned back, letting his body sink into the bed.
The mattress was soft, and the moment he lay down, he felt himself enveloped in its plush comfort. A wave of drowsiness washed over him in seconds.
He squinted, his thoughts beginning to drift.
“I wonder what ‘expired’ on the character card means. Could it be that the card itself has some effect while the person is still alive?”
“The character cards are found on the monsters born from sin. I wonder what happens when a player gets the card corresponding to their own identity...”
“But what is my identity? Don’t tell me I’m actually the villain.”
...
In Room 1, Cynthia’s sleep was far from peaceful.
Perhaps it was a case of her daytime thoughts bleeding into the night, for her dreams were a gruesome collage of flesh and severed limbs.
Furious curses and accusations still echoed in her ears. She looked down at her own arms, smooth and unwrinkled, then tentatively raised a hand to her face, feeling the supple skin.
“Forty years ago... I’d almost forgotten what I looked like back then...”
Cynthia surfaced from the haze of her dream, a placid smile gracing her lips.
A flood of information that should have been buried surged back into her mind. She remembered instantly: she was in the *Grand Performance* instance of the Weird Game, and she was dreaming about the first time she had ever "killed" someone.
Ever since being selected for the Weird Game, Cynthia had used her authority to acquire a wealth of related materials from the Weird Investigation Bureau. If the development of team-forming items hadn’t been stuck at a critical juncture, she could have even requested that veteran investigators from the Bureau guide her through an instance.
At this moment, she had already formed a rough assessment of the situation: players did not have meaningless dreams in an instance. All dreams were a mechanism of the instance itself, and what she saw and heard likely pointed to important clues.
The dream continued. Cynthia stood on a high platform, just as she had forty years ago, gazing down with cold indifference at the crowd being scattered by armed forces.
“Heh, interesting.” A faint, ethereal chuckle sounded from behind her ear.
Cynthia turned toward the sound and saw a young man in a red suit leaning casually against the wall.
The young man had a captivating face; every detail of his features was perfectly formed. His eyes and brow were so exquisite they didn't seem real, looking more like a master’s painting.
“What do you make of the current situation?” the young man asked.
“Zhou Ke?” Cynthia found his voice familiar, suspiciously so.
The young man gave a casual nod. “Uh-huh.”
Cynthia recalled how, during the first act’s vote, the young man had viciously goaded everyone into voting for Hansen, and her suspicions deepened.
This person was a hyena, accustomed to lurking in the shadows. Why would he suddenly dare to show his true face?
As if sensing her doubt, the young man grinned, revealing a row of fine, sharp teeth. His skin began to visibly wither and peel away like a rotten onion, exposing an unfamiliar face beneath.
But soon, that unfamiliar face also began to decay, crumbling and flaking off in pieces...
This person was a monster! A monster born of sin!
Cynthia reached into the inner layer of her formal dress but found no items. She immediately turned and ran toward the edge of the platform.
All the familiar elements of her dream dissolved into dust, collapsing into a void. The light abruptly dimmed, leaving only a pile of intertwined corpses behind, their forms growing clearer and more distinct.
The mangled, bloodied bodies, crushed into pulps of flesh, began to rise in grotesque poses. They writhed and squirmed toward Cynthia, like vengeful demons crawling out of hell, their claws outstretched.
In the darkness, lines of silver text materialized:
[Monster Name: Human Skin Collector]
[Corresponding Player: Zhou Ke]
[Description: The elegant and gentle Mr. Collector is actually a monster wearing human skin. Fickle by nature, he is passionate about peeling off the faces of interesting people and wearing them as his own. One layer, two layers, three... Don’t you think he looks a little more human now?]
[Trigger Condition: Be in the same space with it, with you as the only human present.]
[Attack Method: Corpse manipulation, flaying.]
[Note: Only the dead are worthy of affection. They are quiet, obedient, and unchanging. They won’t... silently flee.]
...
In Room 3, He Hui awoke groggily from her sleep. As if guided by some unseen force, she got out of bed and pushed open the door.
Outside was not the familiar stage, but a labyrinth of mirrors.
The light was dim, and the mirrors reflected nothing but the girl’s image. A figure in a white dress was set against a pitch-black background, her gaze haunting, looking just like a classic female ghost from a horror film.
Mirrors at different angles reflected different images of her, surrounding He Hui with a dense crowd of her own likeness, all of their eyes converging on her from a perfectly calculated angle.
He Hui was suddenly struck by the illusion of being watched by countless people in broad daylight. Even though she knew they were all just reflections of herself, she couldn’t help but feel a rising panic, her hands and feet turning cold. She took a step back, her spine hitting something hard and cold. A massive mirror had appeared behind her at some point, blocking her way back.
In the mirror, her own reflection’s lips curled into a smile, the arc widening until it nearly reached her ears.
It wasn’t just this mirror. In all the mirrors, she... was smiling.
He Hui instinctively raised a hand to her own lips, only to feel a flat surface.
A chilling terror seized her entire body. She stumbled backward in a panic, crashing between the mirrors until her head spun.
Something cold embraced her from behind. It was a pair of long, almost transparent limbs, shaped vaguely like arms, but the separation of the five fingers was blurry, like the webbed feet of an amphibian.
“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid...”
“I am you, and you are me...”
“We are all you...”
A series of whispers brushed against her ear. He Hui found herself becoming strangely calm, even forgetting to struggle.
The arms held her loosely. Noticing she had quieted down, they gently took her hand and began to guide her through the glass maze.
Pairs of translucent, glowing white hands reached out from the mirrors, eagerly taking He Hui’s, pulling her left and right, swiftly navigating her through the labyrinth.
She suddenly understood. She had chosen the right room, the one where her own sin resided. The creature she now faced was the monster born from that sin.
One would never harm oneself. After all... she only had herself.
Beyond the maze, the familiar wooden door stood in silent stillness, the Arabic numeral "3" written upon it.
A black card lay at He Hui’s feet. She bent down to pick it up, and her system interface was immediately flooded with notifications.
[Congratulations on obtaining your character card, becoming the first character in this play to learn their destiny.]
[You will gain all the privileges of this character, including becoming the character herself.]
“Privileges? Character?”
He Hui frowned at the card in her hand. The silver text on it was sharp and clear:
[Character Card - Protagonist]
[Description: She has a past she cannot bear to recall and a secret of great consequence, but she also has a present where she has stepped out of the shadows and a future where she will stand in the sun. She is kind and pure, always adhering to her principles as a human being and willing to redeem the suffering around her. She may be weak, she may have flaws, but she never stops growing and will ultimately become a radiant beacon on her journey.]
[Effects: 1. "Protagonist Invincibility Law" - After suffering a fatal injury, you will be revived in a plausible manner (one chance per script);
2. "Affinity" - You will more easily gain the favor of the male characters in this script.]
...
Qi Si had a very strange dream.
In his dream, the theater was being consumed by a great fire. Soaring tongues of flame devoured every corner. Puppets, costumes, stage props—everything was swallowed by the inferno, turning into black ash that billowed into the air.
Qi Si stood at the center of the stage. The flames had already climbed from his ankles to his waist, yet he felt no pain.
He looked down at himself, wreathed in fire, and actually found it rather artistic. He even contemplated finding a corpse to burn when he returned to reality, just to see.
A shrill scream echoed from the distance. It sounded quite familiar.
Qi Si walked through the burning corridor, heading toward the source of the sound. After a few turns, the space opened up before him.
In the sea of fire, a giant birdcage was fixed to the ground with thick iron chains. Inside stood a burly man, his entire body engulfed in raging flames.
Unlike Qi Si, the man seemed to feel the searing pain of the fire. He struggled relentlessly, trying desperately to pry open the iron bars of the cage.
Qi Si walked over and glanced at the man’s face, which was not yet completely consumed by the flames. “Well, now,” he muttered in surprise. “Hansen, I thought your death was miserable enough. Is this your soul in hell, continuing its torment?”
The man suffering in the fiery cage was none other than Hansen, the one who had been voted out by the players.
Seeing Qi Si approach, he wailed while roaring through gritted teeth, “Zhou Ke! You’ll end up in hell sooner or later! You’ll die a horrible death, far worse than mine!”
Qi Si smiled, thoroughly amused. “Uh-huh, I know. Everyone has to die sometime.”
Hansen yelled again, “I’ve seen it! You are steeped in sin! You deserve to die far more than I do!”
“I do,” Qi Si agreed with a solemn nod, then asked earnestly, “But I’m not dead right now. What are you going to do about it?”
Hansen: “...”
Hansen: “Aaaarrrggghhhh!”
Qi Si classlessly enjoyed the victim’s tragic end for a while. Before he could offer any more taunts, he opened his eyes to the ceiling of his room in the theater.
He sat up in bed, walked straight to a corner of the room, and began to pick at the brightly colored wallpaper with his fingernail.
His fingertip touched a rough texture. He tore off a small piece of the wallpaper, revealing a decaying, ash-covered wall beneath. It bore clear scorch marks, instantly connecting with the scene from his dream.
“So this place really did burn down?”
Qi Si’s eyes were half-closed. Using the small hole he’d just made, he began peeling off the entire wall of wallpaper, piece by piece, revealing the mottled, ash-stained wall underneath.
A yellowed sheet of papyrus fluttered out from a crack in the wall, drifting down like a falling leaf.
Written on it was a fragment of a script:
[Charlie: The plot you’ve written is completely devoid of artistic merit! It has no logic, nothing but violence, gore, and low-brow humor. How can something like this possibly make people think?]
[Puppet (placing a finger to its lips): Shh, my dear sir, do you hear that? The audience is cheering, applauding! They genuinely love this work!]
[Charlie: But I don’t understand! It’s terrible from every conceivable angle!]
[Puppet: Exactly! Creating a truly great work is so difficult! It’s enough to just take away the audience’s brains. They’ll immerse themselves in it, reveling and screaming along!]
[The Puppet bursts into laughter. Charlie clutches his head in agony. The audience’s cheers grow louder and louder, drowning out their conversation.]
At the same moment, four large words appeared on every player’s system interface—
[END OF ACT ONE]