As the male protagonist Bai Mo looked at the paper, countless thoughts flashed through his mind, and the camera, through fast-forwarding, took the audience on a quick review of those key moments.

In fact, in Yin Chengjue's script, after seeing this note, the male lead immediately realized the commonality of the series of events that had occurred in the past few days, and then concluded that "this is actually a game."

However, in the movie, the male protagonist cannot commit suicide directly like that, otherwise the audience will be confused and think that the male protagonist has gone crazy.

Just like in crosstalk, the lead comedian and the straight man need to work well together to make the jokes have the best effect.

If the straight man (or supporting comedian) delivers a punchline too quickly and the audience hasn't had time to react, the punchline is wasted and loses its impact. Conversely, if the straight man is slow to respond, the audience has already understood and laughed, and the laughter has faded, missing the climax.

Therefore, although movies are not stand-up comedy, they share some similarities in certain aspects.

Take the male protagonist solving the mystery as an example. If the audience doesn't understand it at all and only sees the male protagonist committing suicide, they will only think that the male protagonist is mentally ill. Therefore, it is necessary to give the audience a review first, to simply clarify the thought process, and then give the final answer so that people will have an "aha" moment.

In post-production, the most crucial moments were cut out and used as flashbacks for the male lead. The flashback begins with the rescued people saying, "Seven days later, this cruise ship will run aground and sink." The footage shows moved furniture in the room, a deliberately deleted surveillance camera memory card…

On another occasion, the protagonist hid in the corridor and overheard a conversation among the people who had been rescued from the cruise ship: "ID XXX (the name of a passenger on the cruise ship), attempted to escape the cruise ship for violating regulations, but failed!"

"ID Bai Mo, instigating others to leave the cruise ship, 2 warnings." From this sentence, the protagonist Bai Mo realized there was another version of himself who had done things he didn't know about, and thus deduced the existence of the person in the mirror. He knew he hadn't instigated anyone to leave the cruise ship, and there wasn't another person named Bai Mo on the ship, but since these people said this, it meant there was another version of him.

Adding to the chaos, some passengers on the cruise ship mysteriously disappeared, and the predictions of several victims came true time and time again.

Those who enjoy playing games will gradually realize that these victims look like NPCs who issue quests and supervise players to complete them. Once a player violates the rules, they will define the violation according to its severity. If the violation is not serious, it will be a warning; if the violation is serious, it will be eliminated.

If players complete a small task, such as when NPCs say, "Today's after-dinner fruit was delicious, and we wish everyone could taste it," then all players who tasted the fruit that day will receive a task completion reward.

These small rewards will be personally delivered to them by these NPCs.

The protagonist, Bai Mo, had his door knocked on several times by these people in distress. If he opened the door, they would say, "Mr. Bai Mo, this is a gift for you, thank you for your continued care." If he didn't open the door, they would knock ten times, then leave the gift behind and depart. A note would be attached to the gift, containing the same message as their words.

These notes are also a crucial point that allows the male protagonist to discover the person in the mirror.

Because the shipwrecked people only reward those who complete the task, and the protagonist, in addition to the few notes he received, actually found the same notes in a hidden corner of the cruise ship!

Yes! It was a note with his name on it, but he didn't receive it, so someone else must have received it on his behalf!

The person who received it on his behalf hid the note. If the note hadn't been indestructible, it would have been gone long ago.

The fact that the note could not be destroyed is also a very puzzling thing.

All the other details combined led the protagonist to a bizarre yet most explainable conclusion about the situation: this was a game.

And all of them, who were originally on the cruise ship, were players!

To win this game, you must complete the mission before the seven-day deadline.

But what is that mission?

The cruise ship was rocking violently in the storm, and the lights on board were flashing, as if the power could go out at any moment.

Bai Mo put down the note, looked around, and finally his gaze settled on a mirror in the room.

In the mirror, the male protagonist, wearing a white shirt, looked quite disheveled because he was soaked by the rain.

He stared into the mirror, and the person in the mirror stared back into him.

The abyss is relative.

The male protagonist reached into his pocket, took out a fruit knife, and flicked it away.

"Crack! Snap!"

Just then, the flashing lights went out completely.

The ship has lost power!

"Boom!" A thunderclap boomed in the sky, and lightning flashed through the room's window, illuminating the mirror and the figure standing in front of it.

But then a figure slowly fell to the ground, and when the camera zoomed in, all that was shown was a pool of dripping blood!

Then, the screen suddenly went black, and the scene changed to a snow-white bed.

Bai Mo opened his eyes to a series of rhythmic beeping sounds, his vision gradually clearing from blurry to sharp.

He slowly sat up and, from the bright red cross on the blanket, concluded that he was in a hospital.

He survived?

This is the shared sentiment of the male lead and the audience.

Just then, the ward door was pushed open, and a man in a white coat walked in. Seeing that he was awake, he raised an eyebrow slightly: "You're finally awake. You've been unconscious for many days."

"I..." The male protagonist opened his mouth, only to find that his voice was hoarse.

The man in the white coat brought him water and put a straw in it, telling him to sip it slowly to moisten his throat and not to drink too much at once.

After drinking some water, Bai Mo was finally able to speak with difficulty: "Did you save me?"

The man in the white coat raised an eyebrow: "Otherwise what?"

Bai Mo smiled slightly and was about to say thank you when the man in the white coat said, "However, if you try to commit suicide by cutting your wrists again, I won't care about you anymore! Isn't it better to live a good life? What's the point of making yourself so miserable over someone else?"

Upon hearing this, Bai Mo was taken aback, as were the audience who had assumed he had survived the shipwreck.

"What?" The male protagonist raised his hand and saw a diagonal knife wound on it.

"I, I am..." Bai Mo's eyes were somewhat confused.

"What's wrong? Still not fully recovered? You tried to commit suicide by cutting your wrists in the bathroom, don't you remember?" the man in the white coat said.

Bai Mo blinked, as if he had come to his senses: "So, it was all just a dream? I didn't actually board the cruise ship?"

"What cruise ship? Ji Yuhai, have you lost too much blood and gone mad?"

"I didn't... um? What did you call me?" Bai Mo was taken aback.

"Ji Yuhai, you've even forgotten your own name?"

Bai Mo shook his head: "No, I'm not. You've mistaken me for someone else. My surname is Bai, and my name is Bai Mo."

The man in the white coat rolled his eyes, then pulled an ID card from the bag next to him and threw it in his face: "Ji Yuhai, I vouch for you in the name of your childhood friend, you are Ji Yuhai, there is no other name. Also, five days from now is that person's wedding, forget about him, he is not worth your lingering feelings."

Bai Mo was still trying to deny it: "No! I'm not!"

"You are..." The man in the white coat placed his hands on Bai Mo's shoulders, staring intently at Bai Mo, and said, word by word, "This time, your name is Ji Yuhai."

Bai Mo was stunned.

After a long while, Bai Mo seemed to read something in the man's eyes. The resistance in his eyes gradually disappeared, replaced by disdain.

Yes, he slapped the man in the white coat's hand away with a look of disgust, saying, "Hey Yan, you just ate garlic for your last meal, didn't you? It stinks!"

"Hmph! Well, I'm your benefactor too. You owe me a debt of gratitude, and you'll have to repay it," said the man in the white coat.

The male protagonist pushed aside the man in the white coat standing by the hospital bed and went into the bathroom.

The toilet door opens and faces a mirror.

The moment the male protagonist looks in the mirror, the scene freezes, and the end credits signify that the film has officially come to a close.

"What's going on? Was that actually the male protagonist's dream?" someone finally couldn't help but ask.

"Of course it wasn't a dream, because you wouldn't forget your own name in a dream, so those weren't dreams, they were things that really happened."

"So, the last doctor lied to him? Did that doctor hypnotize the protagonist?"

"But how do you explain what the doctor said: This time, your name is Ji Yuhai? If there was this time, was there a previous time? What was your name last time?"

"Haha, last time it was called Jing Sheng."

"No, no, no, last time he was called Bai Mo, and the time before that he was called Jing Sheng!" Because it was time to leave and turn on the lights, the man's voice was very excited: "I understand! The protagonist is transmigrating. The protagonist is still the same protagonist, but he doesn't remember. In the previous world, he was called Jing Sheng, in the cruise ship world he was called Bai Mo, and now he has transmigrated to this world and is called Ji Yuhai!"

"It doesn't feel like time travel, it feels more like passing through levels..."

A group of people were having a lively discussion when they left from the other side of the crowd.

Yin Chengjue and Rong Yu waited until most of the people had left before getting up and following behind.

The scene where the protagonist wakes up at the end was added by Yin Chengjue later. Originally intended to help everyone better guess what he wanted to express, it instead added more possibilities, making the original conclusion less obvious.