Chapter 58: Yinghu Park (XI)

The atmosphere suddenly became strange.

The slanting rain fell, wetting their hair and clothes. In the dead silence, the eight people looked at each other, some with a defensive look on their faces, while others seemed to be hesitant to speak.

——There are monsters among them.

This thought made the originally relaxed atmosphere suddenly tense.

Su Mingyun opened his mouth, trying to ease the atmosphere: "Well, it is also possible that this candle was blown out by the monster that turned into Qin Jiang?"

Wang Jia nodded and quickly raised her phone: "And haven't we already got four cards? If the player's matchmaking is interfered with by monsters, it will be considered a matchmaking failure, right?"

Doesn't that mean I can't get the card at all?

Yan Shaowen lazily reminded: "If a player and a monster are paired together, it will be considered a pairing failure, but the rules don't say that monsters can't be paired together."

The rules are shown to human players, and they have no idea what the monsters are like.

Wang Jia and Su Mingyun froze.

Su Mingyun said weakly: "What if the monster gets the card..."

Mu Yu whispered, "Then it could be a fake card."

"We put four cards together and what we get is a fake monster generator."

In order to destroy the fake monster generator, they naturally cannot leave the copy.

By then, the real cards will also be lost, and they will lose completely.

This game is not that simple at all.

Yan Shaowen exhaled, looked at the eight of them, and said slowly: "Hong Yang saw Su Mingyun and I recognize each other with his own eyes, so we two should be cleared of suspicion, right?"

Everyone's eyes immediately focused on Hong Yang.

Hong Yang nodded and said, "Yes, I saw them both taking off their red veils, they should be fine."

Mu Yu said, "Lu Zhongnian and I witnessed Xu Dong and Wang Jia recognizing each other."

——Then, the only four suspects are Mu Yu, Lu Chongnian, Ye Sui and Hong Yang.

There was only the process of the two groups recognizing each other, and no one witnessed it.

Mu Yu pursed his lips and looked with obscure eyes at Ye Sui and Hong Yang, his two good friends, who were standing in front of him.

Ye Sui and Hong Yang were also looking at him and Lu Chongnian with complicated expressions.

The atmosphere became even weirder.

Su Mingyun didn't dare to speak, but Yan Shaowen raised his eyebrows slightly.

Hong Yang muttered irritably, "Can a monster pretend to be so real?"

Ye Sui raised his hand and pressed his head, then thought for a moment, typed a few lines on his mobile phone and showed it to them.

"If one of our two groups is really replaced by a monster, then those two players must have died. Regardless of whether the monster that replaced them can get the card or not, the dungeon should theoretically add two new players. Otherwise, there is no point in playing this game. We can only get three real cards and one fake card, the players will lose, and the dungeon can be closed now."

Everyone watched and thought.

"We have now finished the couple game, so we can't use the love weight exchange scale to get the position of the bride among the new players, but if we ask the boss NPC, maybe we can at least confirm whether there is a new player entering the game."

Su Mingyun's eyes lit up: "If no one enters the game at all, it means no one dies, and no one is replaced by monsters, right!"

Ye Sui nodded.

Mu Yu calmed down and said, "Then let's go and ask."

The moment he turned around, Lu Chongnian hooked his hand.

Mu Yu paused, and the boy walked up to him. Without saying anything, he just held his hand in his.

Lu Zhongnian's hands were dry and warm, and they conveyed a hint of warmth to Mu Yu's hands, which had become a little cold after being immersed in the drizzle.

The two of them didn't say anything, everything was implied.

After entering the cabin, they asked the boss about this. The boss looked confused and said, "No, after this young man came in, no new people came to play this game anymore."

He was referring to Yan Shaowen.

Suddenly, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

There are no new players entering the game, which means that no one has been secretly harmed without their knowledge!

Mu Yu and the other three are all safe, and all four cards are real!

Mu Yu relaxed a little after hearing this, but was still thinking deeply.

Xu Dong typed nervously: "So what should we do now?"

Mu Yu adjusted his glasses, was silent for a moment, and said, "If Li Mingke couldn't come back because of something unexpected in the world after 00:18, then something must have happened after that. I suggest that we wait until then. Before that, we can divide into groups and search in the woods to see if there are any clues that we have missed."

"It's 00:05 now. There are still 20 minutes until 00:25. We can come out and gather every six minutes."

"Starting at 00:18, we left two people outside the grove and put up a sign in the direction of the main gate. We can't see Li Mingke who crossed over from another timeline, but at least we can tell him that if he doesn't go back to the park gate, he may never be able to return."

Mu Yu opened his mouth and seemed to want to say something, but in the end he just said, "... That's it. Does anyone have any objections?"

"No!"

"Okay, let's go."

*

At 00:06, four groups of people dispersed into the woods.

The drizzle was getting heavier and heavier, but the dense branches and leaves in the woods blocked a lot of the rain. Only the humidity in the air was getting higher and higher, soaked with coldness, as if it could crawl into the cracks between people's bones.

The red candles dotted in the woods are still burning, undisturbed by the wind or rain.

The messy footsteps stepped on the dead branches on the ground, making a series of creaking sounds, and disappeared in an instant.

At 00:12, eight people gathered in front of the game base station, panting.

Mu Yu asked: "Did you find anything?"

Everyone shook their heads. Su Mingyun said, "I, I also tried to blow out a few candles, but it was no use. There is still no clue!"

The eight people then went into the grove again.

At 00:18, we gathered again, but still found nothing.

Xu Dong and Wang Jia asked the cabin owner for a piece of card and wrote on it: "Li Mingke, if you see this, hurry back to the park gate. If you go any further, you won't be able to go back! You will die in the world after midnight!"

They pointed towards the gate, Xu Dong held up the cardboard and Wang Jia waved desperately.

They didn't know whether everything they were doing at this moment would be in vain, but they still hoped to rewrite Li Mingke's ending as much as possible.

Mu Yu said hoarsely, "We have three groups left and we will go into the woods one last time. Let's go a little earlier this time and gather at the game base station at 23 minutes."

At that time, they will have to make a final decision.

After saying this, he, Lu Chongnian, Ye Sui, Hong Yang, Su Mingyun and Yan Shaowen ran into the woods again.

…

The wind was getting stronger and stronger, and the red candle flames in the entire forest seemed to be shaking violently.

Ye Sui and Hong Yang ran in the woods, heading north.

They pushed aside the bushes in front of them and passed by the big trees. Suddenly, the two looked at each other, and Hong Yang ran to the left without saying a word.

Ye Sui continued to move forward at the same speed.

But when he jumped over a bush, he suddenly accelerated and pounced into the air in front of him!

The next second, Hong Yang appeared at the other end, tore off a piece of cloth from his clothes, tied up the ball of air in front of him, and sneered, "Where do you want to run to?"

The two were dealing with this ball of air, and Ye Sui suddenly raised his head——

A hemp rope fell from the sky, tied up Hong Yang's arms and body, and suddenly pulled him away from the ball of air!

Hong Yang was stunned and struggled desperately, rolling to the ground. Ye Sui immediately stood up and took two steps back cautiously.

Lu Chongnian and Mu Yu appeared at the other end of the bush.

Ye Sui opened his mouth coldly, and the buds growing on his lips were torn apart: "You think you're good?"

Mu Yu stood in front of the ball of air with an expressionless face. He ignored him and said to the person behind him, "Is everything okay?"

Lu Chongnian tore off the cloth strip floating in the air that was tied into a knot by Hong Yang, and the air began to flow, silently flowing towards Hong Yang.

Immediately afterwards, Hong Yang's hand was pulled.

Hong Yang looked coldly at his right hand being pulled to a corner by the invisible air.

There was a burning red candle, and his hands were positioned to protect the flame.

It was moved above the flame again and then lifted up.

Mu Yu's pupils shrank: "...will it get longer?"

The next second, Hong Yang grabbed the air tightly, opened his mouth and pounced over!

Lu Zhongnian shouted, "Don't resist it!"

But it was useless - Hong Yang was obviously pushed away by something, and he was punished by the copy. His head was instantly splashed with concentrated sulfuric acid, and his skin was torn apart.

A candle suddenly fell from the air - a candle that looked like it had been burned to the bottom, with a pile of melted wax solidified next to the candle.

Mu Yu caught the candle, and at that moment his heart seemed to stop beating.

He and Lu Chongnian looked at each other, and they no longer cared about Hong Yang and Ye Sui, but turned around and ran towards the game base station.

Ye Sui realized something and immediately chased after him, but he tripped and fell after running only a few steps!

A thin rope appeared across the ground at some point, and Yan Shaowen and Su Mingyun walked out from both sides.

Ye Sui raised his head and gritted his teeth: "You..."

They were all lurking around!

Yan Shaowen was holding a bundle of hemp rope in his hand. The two of them tied him up together and threw him aside. Yan Shaowen looked at him and said lightly, "He really looks good in pretending."

"Let's go quickly, it's too late!" Su Mingyun said anxiously.

Mu Yu and Lu Chongnian broke into the game base station.

Xu Dong and Wang Jia were waiting for them anxiously inside. In front of them was the wooden table in the wooden house, on which were two candles.

The two candles burned quietly.

*

Time goes back eighteen minutes.

00:06, everyone enters the woods for the first round.

Mu Yu and Lu Zhongnian ran to the east.

Mu Yu looked carefully at both sides of the road. He whispered to Lu Zhongnian, "I always feel that we have to look for the bodies of Qin Jiang and Lu Bin. Jiang He's body turned into that state, so what about the other two?"

He always felt that there were important clues hidden in the shape of the player's corpse.

The monster that turned into Qin Jiang once mentioned that Qin Jiang's body shrank and was teleported into a tree hole by the copy.

Of course, most of what the monster said were lies, but on this point, Mu Yu felt that the monster was telling the truth.

Because Ye Sui also mentioned in the note that he had seen a bride in a tree hole.

The bride was most likely Qin Jiang, who was still alive at the time.

But the direction left by Ye Sui at that time was too vague. He only said that he saw it in the woods in the northeast direction. At this moment, Mu Yu and Lu Chongnian were searching all the way in the northeast direction, checking many tree holes along the way, but they only saw red candles in the tree holes, but did not see any deformed human figures in the tree holes.

Mu Yu stopped and took a breath.

Lu Zhongnian raised his hand and gently rubbed his head to give him a little comfort. His cold voice actually added a touch of warmth in the cold night.

"Don't worry, let's review the situation again."

Mu Yu raised her head, calmed her breathing, and looked at the boy in front of her.

Lu Zhongnian said slowly: "There are a total of nine players in this instance, and the one with the most special identity is the one who was left outside the park gate."

"He can see the world after midnight and the monsters hidden among the players. This person is obviously a 'bystander' who sees things more clearly than a bystander. So if we want to analyze the problems in this instance, we have to start with him."

Mu Yu followed Lu Chongnian to sort out the clues from the beginning.

He adjusted his glasses and said in concentration, "The first time Li Mingke passed on information to us, he told us to be careful of a strange man. The man he mentioned must be a new player who entered the dungeon later. As for the 'strange man', could he be referring to Yan Shaowen?"

because--

1. If the "strange man" had come out of the woods and was wearing a groom's wedding suit, Li Mingke should have realized that this was a new player added to the instance, and in theory he should not have used the word "be careful".

Only when he saw that scene, the strange man was wandering outside the woods and wearing everyday clothes, would Li Mingke be likely to feel confused and try to remind them to be careful of this strange man.

2. The scene that Li Mingke saw happened after midnight, and Xu Dong and Wang Jia were added to the copy after the deaths of Qin Jiang and Lu Bin. It was impossible for the two of them to enter the copy so late.

Therefore, the strange man that Li Mingke saw wandering alone outside the woods at that time was unlikely to be Xu Dong.

Either, the person he saw was Yan Shaowen, who entered the copy after midnight on the original timeline; or, the "strange man" was another new player.

And if it is the former case, then what does this change in copy progress mean?

Lu Zhongnian spoke at a steady pace.

"We can analyze the impact of Li Mingke's reminder on our timeline."

"In the original timeline, Lü Bin and Qin Jiang died, and Xu Dong and Wang Jia were added to the dungeon. According to the developments we know, the monster should have first turned into Lü Bin's face, found where Su Mingyun was, and crashed into Jiang He."

"But in the original timeline, without Li Mingke's reminder, Jiang He didn't know its identity. It might have wanted to trick Jiang He into breaking the rules, but it failed in the end."

"So, Jiang He and Su Mingyun survived, and the monster may have gone to find Xu Dong and Wang Jia after separating from them."

"Similarly, without Li Mingke's reminder, you and I might not have known that a monster had infiltrated our group. It was even more impossible for us to know that new people had been added to the dungeon, so we naturally wouldn't have gone looking for them, so—"

Mu Yu's voice sank: "In the original timeline, Wang Jia and Xu Dong were probably induced by the monster to break the rules and both died."

If they die, the copy will naturally have a second group of players added.

——So, in the original timeline, Yan Shaowen entered the dungeon with another new player as substitutes for Xu Dong and Wang Jia?

Li Mingke's reminder advanced the time for Yan Shaowen to enter the copy and changed the fate of Xu Dong and Wang Jia. He did save some people, but also indirectly led to Jiang He's death.

Things have been good and bad, but the problem is——

Lu Zhongnian looked at Mu Yu and asked, "Why is there no 'Li Mingke's reminder' in the original timeline?"

Mu Yu paused.

The drizzle became denser, hitting the faces of the two people drop by drop.

Lu Zhongnian said calmly, "The purpose of the original timeline is obviously to let us distinguish the difference between 'originally' and 'now', but in the original timeline, the copy should have captured 9 players at the beginning, and the rules should be exactly the same as ours now. The extra player will be left outside the park gate."

"So, assuming that in the original timeline, Li Mingke was also left outside and he saw everything, why didn't he warn us?"

Mu Yu and Lu Chongnian stood opposite each other.

Mu Yu said in a low voice: "...Unless the original timeline was fake from the beginning."

"...The replica did create the timeline of 'without Li Mingke's reminder', but because this timeline itself could not possibly exist, everything Li Mingke saw... was all an illusion created by the replica."

The purpose was to induce Li Mingke to make a rash reminder.

Jiang He’s death was the ending directed by the copy himself.

There was silence between the two of them for a moment.

Lu Zhongnian said in a gentle tone: "After knowing that Jiang He was in trouble, Li Mingke's attitude towards the original timeline has obviously become much more cautious. Even if he sees something unusual in the world after midnight, he probably won't give us hints so easily. He's afraid that he will make another mistake."

"And he eventually died in the world after zero, it must be because he went deep into that world. Why did he do that?"

Mu Yu said in a hoarse voice: "——Because he may have discovered a problem."

"He repeatedly compared the developments on the two timelines, but still couldn't figure out the answer to that question, so he chose to go deep into the world after midnight, wanting to wait until he figured it out before passing on the answer to us."

But everything in the original timeline was fake!

Everything was fake, how could Li Mingke get the answer in the "future"? !

Mu Yu lowered his head, took a deep breath, then raised his head and asked, "But in this case, do you think we can still meet Li Mingke from another timeline?"

"Yes," Lu Zhongnian wiped the raindrops from his forehead and said, "The copy may have been waiting for this moment. Li Mingke is an 'outsider'. There are some things that can only be seen by him, and some situations may only be solved by him. The moment he chooses to go deeper into the 'future', the copy should open the real door to him."

Mu Yu froze: "Then we can change..."

Then again, are they trying to change Li Mingke’s past or his future?

The boy was straddling the past and the future, and they couldn't even catch his figure.

Lu Zhongnian just said: "We won't know until we try it. Now, let's go over there first."

Mu Yu looked and saw that Lu Chongnian was pointing to the left.

And on the left is the direction where Ye Sui and Hong Yang just went.

Mu Yu fell into silence.

One answer is already very clear.

There is a problem between Ye Sui and Hong Yang.

Who made the second everlasting candle? Why did Li Mingke get into trouble in the world after midnight? And what questions did he choose to go deep into the world after midnight to solve?

——He may have discovered something strange about one or two players, but he did not see a monster's head growing on the head of the person he suspected in the world after midnight.

When the situations on both sides don't match, Li Mingke becomes extremely confused.

In the drizzle, Mu Yu tried to keep his voice calm: "There is one thing I don't understand. If Hong Yang and Ye Sui are already in trouble, why haven't there been any new players to replace them?"

"You forgot," Lu Zhongnian said to him in a young voice, "Su Mingyun said that before Jiang He got into trouble, she heard the sound of fighting, and it was a while after the fighting ended that the radio broadcast the news of Jiang He's death. There was a blank period of time in between."

Mu Yu's eyes suddenly shone with light.

During that blank period of time, Su Mingyun heard footsteps approaching her, and then two more footsteps walked away together.

The monster that killed Jiang He remained quietly there, waiting for another thing to come.

——After that, Jiang He was declared dead.

Mu Yu tightened his hands.

Xu Dong and Wang Jia did not know how long after Lu Bin, Qin Jiang and others’ accident they were added to the copy, but Jiang He’s death point was very clear.

What happened in that blank period of time?

Could it be that after Jiang He fought with the monster and was punished by the copy, he didn't die immediately?

Mu Yu immediately thought of Jiang He's body, and - and -

"'Hong Yang' picked up two candles." His voice was tense.

Why did the monster pick up the two candles?

Why should the monster care about the two unlit candles?

Candles - Candles -

The pile of red foam around the corpse of the river——

A flash of light flashed through his mind, and Mu Yu quickly met Lu Zhongnian's gaze, his voice was very deep: "-In this copy, the way players die is to turn into candles?!"

In an instant, countless clues were connected!

Why didn't the monster that killed Jiang He leave immediately? !

Could it be that Jiang He's dungeon punishment was to turn into a candle, and the monster had to wait for the cabin owner to come and light the candle that Jiang He had turned into? !

——The only purpose of the cabin owner entering the grove is to find an unlit candle!

——And if the other strange footsteps that Su Mingyun heard were not from a monster, then they could only be from an NPC!

Why did the monster that turned into Hong Yang bring those two candles with him?

Could it be that the two candles were actually Hong Yang and Ye Sui themselves, and the monsters couldn't let the players get the two candles? !

Mu Yu's heart suddenly pounded against his chest.

"But the candles lit by the cabin owner cannot be blown out. Those two candles have already been lit and blown out!"

——Then Ye Sui and Hong Yang are not? !

Lu Zhongnian's voice was steady and powerful: "——But I still say that the game is not over yet. No new players have entered the dungeon so far, which means that Hong Yang and Ye Sui are likely not dead yet."

Mu Yu's breathing was disordered.

Lu Zhongnian pressed his shoulders hard and said slowly:

"The two candles that the monster who turned into Hong Yang just took out from the game base station might be fake."

"When it met Yan Shaowen, it was probably waiting for the cabin owner to come over and light the candles. It chose to take the two candles with Yan Shaowen to avoid Yan Shaowen's suspicion. But it probably didn't want other players to touch the two candles, so it probably threw away the two candles halfway and replaced them with two fake ones."

"During the entire process, the only opportunity for it to replace the two candles was when Yan Shaowen found Su Mingyun and the two confirmed each other's identities."

Mu Yu's Adam's apple rolled: "So now——"

Lu Zhongnian stood up and looked towards the left side of the woods: "Now, Yan Shaowen and Su Mingyun have gone to look for candles, and the two monsters are probably following them."

He said to Mu Yu, "The two of us have to hold them back until Yan Shaowen and Su Mingyun successfully find the candle."