Half an hour ago, at the very moment He Hui’s dagger pierced his lower back, Dong Xiwen had his first true, visceral understanding of this game’s cruel nature.
There was no genuine kindness here, only bloody slaughter. Everyone wore a mask, ready to reveal the monster beneath at any moment...
The character card in his pocket flared with a blinding light.
*"Otherworld: You are on a different dimensional plane from the actors and cannot be physically harmed by them."*
Dong Xiwen watched as the wound in his back closed at a visible rate, leaving only a fleeting phantom of pain.
But soon, even that sensation was stripped away. His body seemed to split in two—soul and flesh. The sensations of his physical form drifted further and further away.
He felt as if he had suddenly gained a god's-eye view, observing the entire play from above. He and He Hui were nothing more than shadows cast onto a two-dimensional plane by an unseen audience, mere flimsy characters in a script.
Instinctively, he reached for the dagger in He Hui’s hand, his fingers closing around the sharp blade.
Crimson blood trickled down the silvery metal. The wound on his hand kept sealing and splitting open in a repeating cycle.
He wrenched the dagger from her grasp with surprising ease, flipped it around, and gripped the hilt.
Then, driven by a strange inertia, he plunged it into the girl’s heart.
*"You have killed the protagonist 'He Hui'."*
*"Protagonist 'He Hui' is dead."*
*"Congratulations on being the last one standing on stage. You are the winner of this battle royale."*
Lines of cold text refreshed on the system interface, accompanied by an equally cold, mechanical voice.
Dong Xiwen’s perspective finally crashed back into the plane of the performance, and the immersive sense of reality returned.
He stared blankly at the first two lines of text, completely stunned.
He Hui was actually the protagonist? And if she was the protagonist, how did she die so easily?
"Could it be... there's no such thing as a 'protagonist invincibility' rule?"
Dong Xiwen couldn't make sense of what had just happened.
He glanced over his shoulder. The mirror behind him, corresponding to its now-dead player, shattered into countless fragments before dissolving into a silvery powder that settled over the floor like a fine layer of sand.
Before him, a black card floated up from the girl's corpse, hovering in the air.
*"Character Card - Protagonist"*
*"Effect: 1. 'Protagonist Invincibility'..."*
...
Before reuniting with Dong Xiwen, He Hui had already died once.
Not long after the battle royale began, she, like Dong Xiwen, had chosen a path and found herself dashing through the maze-like corridors.
Due to her childhood experiences, her stamina had always been worse than others. She found it miraculous that she had even survived the first three instances.
Her inventory of items was sparse to begin with, and none of them were specifically designed for confronting ghosts. She had been running for less than ten minutes when the scales caught up to her.
A colossal shadow loomed over her, and a solemn voice questioned her with unyielding authority: "If you could do it all over again, would you still choose to take revenge on your adoptive father in that manner?"
He Hui felt herself begin to fall. The world around her dissolved and reassembled, and she suddenly found herself in a dark alley.
She began to tremble. At the end of the alley, she saw a girl with a face just like hers, clinging to a heavily tattooed man, crying, "I'll sleep with you. I can even go sell myself to make money for you... Just help me kill that man..."
He Hui couldn't remember what she answered. She only remembered that the moment she spoke, the weights of the scale descended from the sky.
She was crushed to the ground by the immense force, clearly hearing the sound of her own bones shattering.
Her consciousness rapidly sank into darkness. Against a pitch-black background, the blood-red pages of the script slowly turned.
The description of her character card flashed before her eyes again: "A future in the sun," "bright and dazzling"—how much it sounded like an unrealistic, fanciful dream.
He Hui felt as if she were split in two. One half of her screamed that she had endured so much pain already; she had to fight with all her might to survive.
The other half whispered softly: *You should have died long ago. A filthy person like you, what reason do you have to live in this world?*
...
*"Act Three, Complete."*
Dong Xiwen, still holding the dagger, stared blankly at He Hui’s body.
He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he thought he saw a faint smile on the girl's lips, as if she had been anticipating death all along.
Just as he leaned in for a closer look, the body exploded without warning. Blood splattered everywhere like flower petals, slowly forming the image of a door on the ground.
The blood-red doorframe and the golden doorway merged into a bizarre whole, an unholy yet sacred invitation to enter.
"It's finally over..." Dong Xiwen let out a soft breath, the questions that had just formed in his mind instantly forgotten.
He was a straightforward person. He Hui had tried to kill him, so he killed her in return. Though the whole affair felt absurd and sudden, it wasn't something he felt the need to dwell on.
After all, he had seen enough of the self-serving nature of human society. How could he expect people in this far more brutal game to watch out for one another?
Dong Xiwen stepped through the door, feeling as though he were plunging into a formless void.
During the long fall, the "Instance Cleared" notification he expected never came. Instead, he landed squarely in a birdcage with a painful thud...
Now, in the flame-engulfed space, five birdcages were arranged in a circle. Two were empty, and three held people.
After Dong Xiwen recounted his experience in Act Three, Cynthia gave a concise summary of what happened to her after she was thrown into her cage.
She made no mention of Hansen, as if she had never seen the man.
Dong Xiwen didn't find it suspicious. After all, Hansen had been voted out, which was different from Qi Si and Cynthia, who were killed by monsters. It was reasonable that he was gone for good.
As their discussion concluded, Qi Si more or less understood. In this instance, players who died due to the instance's own mechanics didn't truly die; they were just tossed into a birdcage to cool off.
The only thing that could kill a player was another player.
That's why Hansen was dead, and so was He Hui.
"What is this? Some kind of test of humanity?" Qi Si rubbed his chin, a faint sense of foreboding creeping over him.
The minimum death count mechanism was still in effect, which meant that as long as he killed all the other players, he could secure a clear.
But if a free-for-all broke out, with his physical strength, he would absolutely be the first to die.
Well, at least the cages kept them separated. And thankfully... Cynthia only had one bullet left. Qi Si subtly shifted toward the center of his cage, just as Dong Xiwen’s strained voice cut through the air. "Zhou Ke, why did you lie to me last night? He Hui was the 'Protagonist,' which means you're the 'Antagonist,' right?"
Qi Si turned to look at him, his eyes narrowing into a smile. "And what if I am? Among everyone here, can anyone guarantee that everything they've said is the absolute truth?"
Dong Xiwen was about to retort, but Qi Si held his gaze, asking with a wry smile, "Then let me ask you, after you killed those people, how did you manage to evade the Federation for two years?"
The answer was that shortly after the incident, "that organization" had found him and hidden him away in a lawless region deep in the mountains.
Of course, he couldn't say that out loud. In his own mind, that organization was a cult that deserved to be executed for five minutes straight...
Seeing that he had silenced Dong Xiwen, Qi Si continued calmly, "Whatever happened in the play before, our interests are aligned now. I hope you'll stop getting hung up on irrelevant questions and wasting all of our time."
"I have some thoughts on our current situation. You've probably noticed that it's been nearly three days, yet none of us feel hungry. I suspect we might be in some kind of conscious space. What we need to figure out is how to 'wake up' from here..."
"Ladies and gentlemen!" A voice, so enthusiastic it bordered on disingenuous, boomed from above, cutting Qi Si off. "I am your friend, Charlie, the puppeteer and playwright! Welcome to my final performance!"
The voice was exceptionally familiar, identical in tone and inflection to the puppet Charlie who had just died.
Dong Xiwen couldn't help but heckle, "Hey, hold on! Haven't we heard this script before? Are you sure you don't want to change a single word?"
The voice didn't respond, continuing its monologue. "I wish to explore a new form of art, one in which all who love art can participate..."
As the speech went on, the flames that had engulfed the theater died out at a visible rate. A familiar round table rose from beneath the floor, with five high-backed chairs placed at equal intervals around it.
Everyone's expression grew grim.
The scene before them was undoubtedly reverting to the play's original setup. Aside from two fewer people, everything seemed to be back to how it started.
They had just endured a three-act performance drenched in blood. Although they now knew that no matter how gruesome their death in the script, they wouldn't truly die, the pain of the process was enough to terrify anyone.
But the current situation made it brutally clear: the play was endless. In this infinite loop of time and space, the game of death and suspicion would continue...
Cynthia subconsciously touched the item in her pocket. If it came down to it, her only option was to kill "Zhou Ke" and Dong Xiwen to trigger the minimum death count.
If she remained trapped in this instance any longer, she feared she would be lost here forever...
"Ms. Cynthia," Qi Si said suddenly, his voice cool. "As allies, I feel there's something I should tell you. The contract you signed with me in Act Two is technically called a 'Soul Contract.' The moment you signed your name, you mortgaged your soul to me. If I die, you die too."
Cynthia caught his underlying meaning and asked with a thin smile, "Are you afraid I'll use an item to kill you, so you're making up a lie like this to threaten me?"
"So, do you believe me or not?" Qi Si returned her smile with one of his own. "I just don't want you to make a foolish, lose-lose decision. Of course—if you're determined to take me down with you, then there's nothing I can do."
Cynthia fell silent.
If Hansen had said something like this, she would have laughed it off. But this was Qi Si speaking, and she couldn't afford not to consider it carefully.
Given his personality, it was entirely possible he had been concealing a great deal of information, only revealing bits and pieces when necessary.
And the contract she had signed involved the rules of the world. She didn't believe for a second that it was as simple as its surface-level clauses...
She didn't dare to gamble.
The pain of her gruesome death hadn't brought her any peace; instead, it had made her fear death more than ever before. She didn't want to die. she wanted to live...
She refused to be extinguished here. She would live on, for a long, long time...
"I understand," Cynthia said, the wrinkles on her face smoothing out. "We haven't reached the point where one of us has to die. The benefits of cooperation far outweigh the alternative."
Dong Xiwen’s eyes widened. "Hey, hey, are you two sure it's okay to be plotting so openly?"
Qi Si pretended not to hear him and continued where Cynthia left off. "I already have some theories about this instance's worldview..."
The moment he realized the script might repeat indefinitely, he began to form a vague idea of Mr. Charlie's purpose.
It was just like the Weird Game itself, designing one instance after another, forcing the same evils to play out repeatedly in both reality and the game. And what was this instance if not the same?
By inserting countless no-win games, it forced players to attack each other amidst suspicion. The rich miasma of sin would accumulate with each game, gradually festering into an even deeper darkness.
As for not truly dying in the mini-games, that was hardly the NPC having a crisis of conscience. It was merely a way to extract sin more efficiently.
The outcome of a brutal death provided ample pressure, forcing the players, who were barely hanging on, to throw themselves into the game time and time again, just as Charlie arranged—a fate worse than death.
Trapped in endless fear, the players would eventually transform into savage demons, sinking their fangs and claws into one another...
"The performance has begun! Let the carnival commence! Let's play this grand, absurd symphony!" The voice from above finished reciting the lines, which were nearly identical to those from the first act. A slender figure in a white mask materialized next to the round table—it was Charlie from the play.
He seemed to have no memory of the bitter animosity from the last performance. He continued in a cheerful tone, "Each of you is guilty, but one among you is guilty of a heinous crime. Please write the name of the sinner you believe most deserves judgment on the white paper. They will be executed in a unique fashion!"
The birdcages dissolved into a shower of light. Qi Si felt the world spin, and when his vision settled, he found himself sitting primly in the number one seat.
Cynthia and Dong Xiwen were also seated at the table, in seats number four and five, respectively—the same as their initial positions.
Specks of light rose from the tabletop, coalescing into white sheets of paper in front of each of them. A black quill pen rested quietly at the edge of each sheet.
Everything, it seemed, had returned to the very beginning of the instance.
Qi Si asked with a wry smile, "Mr. Charlie, are you guilty? Can we write your name on the paper?"
Charlie's neck twisted stiffly. "Not in this round, you can't. You must choose a sinner from among the three of you to execute!"
This was practically a blatant instruction for the players to push one of their companions to a miserable death, just as they had at the start.
Qi Si pondered for a moment before asking again, "Only one is heinously guilty. What if we choose the wrong person?"
Charlie replied, "No matter what choice you make, you won't have to bear the direct consequences. So don't be stingy with your votes. The carnival is what matters most!"
It was the same old speech, not a single word changed.
It was more or less certain that this situation was identical to the first act. All they needed to do was pick a scapegoat...
Dong Xiwen looked at Qi Si, then at Cynthia, and complained with a squint, "This game isn't fair at all... As soon as two people team up, the third person has no chance. And the earlier you die, the more rest you get, making it easier to form alliances in the new act... You're not going to tell me this is some kind of protection for the weak, are you?"
Hearing this, Charlie let out a hoarse laugh. "Heh heh... that's the charm of theater! Countless coincidences and a little bit of luck from the gods—that's what makes it real!"
"This world, after all, has never been fair!"
..................
[Note] *The Trial* is a novel by Austrian author Franz Kafka. It tells the story of Josef K., who is unexpectedly arrested on his 30th birthday and tries desperately to prove his innocence, only to find all his efforts are in vain.
Thank you to the ups and downs of the world for the 3000-point reward, you're awesome! Thank you to book friend 20230306182233912 for the 500-point reward! (Donation progress: 11447/10000, two chapters tomorrow! )