Chapter 7: The Mouse Traps the Cat

The complex footsteps outside became heavier and heavier, and the clicking sounds of the mechas' collisions swept in like a tide along the broken door, hitting Li Ziyue's chest and brain again and again.

Without any hesitation, he pulled up Sun Yuancheng and started running.

The four of them moved flexibly through the rooms. The sounds of objects collapsing and rolling, mixed with the footsteps of people and machines, echoed in the corridors. It seemed that there were people everywhere, but when they looked carefully, no one was found.

Li Ziyue was thinking.

Running away all the time is not a solution. Judging from the footsteps, there must be more than one or two patrollers chasing them. Hiding in front of such a large number of patrollers can only have a temporary effect. The entire underground space is so small. No matter where they hide, they will most likely be found.

In this case, there are only two possible solutions.

1. Confront the patrollers head-on and transform yourself from being the hunted to being the dominant hunter.

However, there is one more person now, whose identity is not yet known. So many inspectors are not pushovers, so a head-on approach is really a bad idea.

Then there are only two.

Li Ziyue opened the system and brought out the virtual structure map of the entire underground space.

Infinite flow copies allow people to complete them. Since it is allowed, there must be a way to solve the problem.

The patroller has a setting that "cancels tracking if the player disappears from sight for two minutes". From this, we can guess the thinking of the creator of the dungeon. It is likely that he does not want the players to fight to the death with the patrollers, but to "hide".

There are two types of hiding: player hiding, or -

The inspector is hidden.

He locked his sights on a corner of the virtual structure diagram, then pulled Sun Yuancheng to turn in another direction, "This way."

He kicked open the iron door in front of him without hesitation, and then pushed Sun Yuancheng inside. The others were about to follow in, but Li Ziyue suddenly lowered his voice: "Zhang Lian."

Zhang Lian stopped and looked at him.

"You stay here. Once all the inspectors are lured into the room, you close the door here."

Li Ziyue looked at Zhang Lian seriously and said, "If you do this well, I will trust you."

In fact, Li Ziyue knew in his heart that the survival rate of players in front of a single inspector was less than 7%. At this moment, leaving someone to guard the back door was no less than ordering them to stand here and wait for death.

While the inspectors are entering the room, if one of them discovers Zhang Lian, he will be besieged by all the inspectors.

Zhang Lian nodded silently, but after two seconds he said hesitantly: "Actually..."

"Time is tight, let's chat later." Li Ziyue interrupted him and walked into the room with his back to Zhang Lian.

His voice was barely audible amid the chaos around him: "...Thank you for your hard work. Be careful."

Zhang Lian stood at the back door, watching Li Ziyue's figure getting farther and farther away. The sound of the armor rubbing against each other behind him seemed to be right next to his ears. The spear had turned from virtual to real and was held in his palm, and his fingers on the cold spear handle were shaking unconsciously.

…

Taking into account the difficulty of the dungeon, generally there are at most three inspectors in the primary pseudo-human game. However, since the strange numbers broadcast on the screen last night and the inexplicable extension of the game time, Li Ziyue no longer regards this game as an ordinary game.

He guessed that there must be more than three patrollers chasing him, but when he blocked the attack of the patroller on the left and immediately rolled backwards to avoid the patroller who was hunched over and grinning at him strangely, he realized that the situation was much more serious than he thought.

Fortunately, he soon heard the sound of Zhang Lian closing the door on the other side. Li Ziyue did not want to fight. He swept his scimitar across, cutting off the mechanical arm of the inspector closest to him, then turned and ran towards the front door.

When he was about to run out of the room, he subconsciously looked up and glanced at the lower right corner of the electronic screen hanging above the room.

[Beijing time 3:41]

Just as he ran out, Sun Yuancheng, who was waiting outside the door, slammed the door shut. However, the next moment his expression suddenly changed: "Brother... I can't lock it."

"It's okay." Li Ziyue took two glances at the door. It was a double-opening door with only an electronic lock on the top. The wires inside the electronic lock were cracked and dark red rust remained on the outer protective layer. It was obviously scrapped for a long time, so it was normal that it could not be closed.

However, when something goes wrong, it must be abnormal.

This room is the only room in the entire underground space with a problem with its door lock, but it's not true to say that it really can't be closed.

Li Ziyue lowered his eyes and looked. As expected, there were two protruding circles in the middle of the doors on both sides, which could accommodate the passing of human arms. Passing a long hard object through the two circles could also have the effect of closing the door.

This is the real way to close the door.

At the same time, the mechanical sound of the system prompt sounded in the aisle.

[Congratulations to the player for triggering the "Mouse Traps the Cat" hidden mission]

[Mission Difficulty: One Star (Currently only the single-celled organism Paramecium has not successfully completed the mission)]

[Task requirements: Lock the room from front to back]

[Task Reward: Points (Number of trapped inspectors*20), Room Enhancement (Inspectors cannot break through within half an hour)]

One-star missions are very simple, and the props to break the deadlock will not be too far from the player’s location.

As Li Ziyue looked around, he saw a row of unused colorful steel pipes piled up in the aisle on the right, and the person closest to the steel pipes at this moment was the "Fishman" who had opened the door and told them to run away.

After the escape, the man was sweating like heavy rain, and his whole body was wet, like a lifeless dead fish.

Li Ziyue did not hesitate and shouted to the man: "Friend, please help pass the red tube under your feet to me."

"Ah?" The fishman stared at the ground, visibly panicked for two seconds.

Li Ziyue frowned slightly.

Something is wrong.

"Oh, a pipe, a pipe," he muttered, stretching his arms downward. His palms were soaked, and he fumbled a few times before he finally picked up one. "Uh, are you talking about this pipe with a slight bend on top..."

Li Ziyue's eyes darkened.

On the other side, Sun Yuancheng couldn't help but exclaimed "Ah".

What the man picked up was a long dark green tube.

[Fake people will make mistakes on common sense issues]

Unexpectedly, the next second Li Ziyue's eyes suddenly softened, and he even smiled: "Yeah."

"That one. I'm against the door and it's hard to get over here. Could you please pass it to me?"

Sun Yuancheng covered his mouth and dared not speak.

They have been together for nearly two nights, and nothing good has happened when Li Ziyue is smiling.

At the same time, "click——"

The sound of steel breaking could be heard. The inspectors in the room had gone crazy and were trying to cut open the door in front of them with sharp knives.

Li Ziyue was obviously almost unable to hold on any longer. A dim gap gradually opened between the two doors, and a few cloudy eyes could be seen in the gap.

Laughing.

The man was startled, and dared not slow down any longer, stumbling over: "Here... here you are..."

However, what he didn't expect was that Li Ziyue did not take the steel pipe he handed over, but suddenly grabbed his wrist, and then relaxed the hand that was against the door.

The front door of the room suddenly opened. Before the fishman could react to what was happening, he felt a pain in his back and his knees went weak. He was pushed suddenly and was about to kneel down towards the line of inspectors inside the door.

The light and shadow behind him shrank rapidly, and a nearly despairing "click" sound came through the heavy door into the dim room.

The door was closed from the outside and the fishman was pushed inside.

at the same time.

The mechanical voice sounded again: [Congratulations on completing the mission. All players present will receive 8*20 points as rewards. The room enhancement has been completed. I wish you a happy game.]

Inside, countless eyes were grabbing the fishman's heart, lungs and breathing, and pieces of cold blades were flying in the air. In the darkness, he was like a disabled mouse besieged by a giant cat.

"Ah! Help... please—"

"Don't kill me, don't kill me..."

The sound of flesh being torn apart was the perfect symphony for this crushing massacre.

"Please... you who are outside the door..."

“Please save me…”

Sun Yuancheng was no longer able to hold on. His face was pale, and his clothes were soaked with cold sweat. He stared at Li Ziyue's back and said in a trembling voice: "...You are crazy."

He didn't call him brother.

"What if he is a real person! What if he is red and green color blind! Why did you push him in directly? What's the difference between you and sending him to die... You killed someone, Li Ziyue! You... uh..."

Sun Yuancheng's jaw was tightly grasped by Li Ziyue. He couldn't breathe and his face turned from pale to red.

"you……"

Li Ziyue lowered his eyes and looked at him, his eyes as cold as mountain icicles: "What if?"

Li Ziyue had never expressed any extra opinion on how incompetent and cowardly Sun Yuancheng was before, but at this moment, Sun Yuancheng's unshakable heart began to collapse.

Sun Yuancheng couldn't understand the expression on Li Ziyue's face. He seemed to have become a completely different person. His whole body exuded a cruelty that looked down on others. He looked at Sun Yuancheng as if he was looking at a ridiculous ant.

Sun Yuancheng felt that Li Ziyue would no longer treat him the same way as before.

Li Zi hated him more and more.

"Do you know how some players cleared the primary pseudo-human copy?"

"They lurk in the last ever-bright moment, then go and slaughter people, cleansing the rules with blood until the system announces that all fake people have been transformed into players."

"Sun Yuancheng, have I ever told you that I'm a good person? Have I ever told you that I abide by the so-called moral rules?" Amid the tense situation, Li Ziyue smiled again, which was rare.

"Don't forget, I brought you along and protected you all the way only because you are a player. Once you have the possibility of becoming a fake person, your fate will be the same as his."

His voice was chilling: "I will push you in without hesitation, Sun Yuancheng."

"Put away all your novice kindness and goodness. This is my second lesson for you."

Inhumane screams pierced out from the room. Time seemed to move very slowly at this moment. The voice of prayer changed from long and sharp to mournful and hoarse, and finally became intermittent and drowned out by the wailing of the collision of armor.

It is 3:45 Beijing time now.

The system announcement is here.

[Data is being updated. Humans are confirmed dead and pseudo-humans are about to replace them.]

Li Ziyue closed his eyes.

Wrong person killed.