Chapter 1

Liu Lan went to study the lines in high spirits. Jiang Qi shook his head, saying that he didn't understand today's workers, and went on to read the script.

In order to get the 500 yuan reward for the mission and also to upgrade the star of the card, he had to study the script thoroughly, especially all the parts where Old John appeared, so as to find the right remedy and a way to upgrade the star of the card.

Xiaoshuting

Jiang Qi went upstairs and spent an hour reading all six character scripts of "Mask Club" and a host manual.

The core of the story is actually very simple. The Mask Club is a place similar to Pawn Shop No. 8. The club accepts all transactions, but requires the most precious things of the traders to be used.

Mina is also a character named after a haggard, short-haired woman, the same short-haired woman that John saw when he first entered the banquet hall.

John was addicted to drugs and alcohol, and his health was poor and he would not live long. Under such circumstances, Mina received the invitation of the club for the first time. Mina learned in the club that all the misery of John came from his former boss, the villain who was killed by John and did not deserve to have a name.

John's former boss came to the club many years ago and traded his conscience for a promotion and salary increase. Later, when the new drug development failed, the former boss came to the club again and traded his family affection for framing John and letting him take the blame for himself. After John was released from prison, he started his own business. The former boss was afraid that John would become successful, so he came to the club for the third time and traded his talent and happiness for a major blow to John's new company.

This is the essence of the Mask Club. People who have made a transaction once can come in and trade again at any time. Continuous trading will constantly magnify people's greed and ultimately lead to destruction.

Mina, who entered the club for the first time, wanted to save John and make him healthy and energetic. After evaluation, the club believed that the most valuable thing about Mina was the precious relationship between her and John, but the relationship was not enough to exchange for these, so Mina added her own appearance and family background, and used beauty, love and money to exchange for John's new life.

Mina lost her love and memory for John, and lost love forever. She became an ordinary-looking woman who was expelled from the family by her father and lived a miserable life.

When Jiang Qi read Mina's book, he didn't realize in the first act that this miserable woman who seemed to be abandoned by the world was Mina. Mina's role in the first two acts was more to explain the Mask Club to other players. After all, among the seven guests this time, except for the former boss who was destined to become dead, Mina was the only one who knew about the Mask Club.

At the end of the first act of Minaben, the desperate woman received an invitation to the Mask Club again. She knew she had been here before, but she didn't remember what she had done here. With nothing left, she finally chose to come to this place where she made a deal with the devil again.

Mina was not the simple, rich, beautiful girl who was in love as Jiang Qi initially thought. On the contrary, her childhood was even as miserable as John's.

In her memory, her mother died early, and all her good memories of childhood came from her mother. Her father favored sons over daughters, and all his attention was on several illegitimate children and the sons born to his stepmother. Although she had no worries about food and clothing since she was a child and no one really abused her, she never received any emotional return. "

When Mina was a teenager, she indulged herself in alcoholism, drugs and car racing. No one cared about her when she needed advice from her elders the most. Her father even gave her a lot of money to indulge her, as if he wanted her to die. Later, Mina came to her senses, but still no one cared about her. With her good family background, she went to a prestigious school, worked in a large company, and had many boyfriends until she met John, who she felt was very similar to herself.

Mina tried so hard to save the fallen John not only because she loved him, but also because she felt that she was saving her fallen self. She saw too many similarities between herself and John, and while she was trying her best to save John, she was also trying her best to save herself.

The other four characters all have separate story lines, without much intersection between them. The plots are similar, and they are all people at the end of their rope with no hope.

Jiang Qi thinks the most interesting part of this game is the final mechanism. After all the truth is revealed, the six players need to make choices. John has a variety of choices. He can exchange what he wants, and the club will evaluate what else he can exchange. He can also choose to return what Mina exchanged to the club. The club allows him to choose two things from love, appearance and family background to return to Mina.

After reading all the stories, Jiang Qi probably understood why Liu Lan said that this book would be meaningless without interpretation.

All the highlights and reversals of this book are basically concentrated in the mechanism where players go through trials and recall things they have forgotten before. No matter how fantastic, detailed and rich the text on the cards is, it cannot be as impactful as a real person performing a scene in front of the players.

As long as the sound and lighting are in place and the acting isn't too awkward, even if the actor rarely shows his face and acts behind a curtain with voice, it will be better than just reading the text.

As the mainstay of the drama club, a professional in flowers, trees and passers-by, and occasionally a part-time stagehand as a lighting and props worker, Jiang Qi said that the performance part still depends on him.

It's time to show off the high-end acting skills I've learned in the drama club over the years.

Just when Jiang Qi was full of ambition and ready to show his skills, Old John came down from upstairs with cleaning tools and said, "We're done cleaning."

"Can I get off work now?"

As a boss who provides food and accommodation but does not pay wages, Jiang Qi symbolically checked Old John's work results.

Very amazing.

Old John is a professional cleaner with decades of experience. He finished the deep cleaning of the entire store in less than three hours. Not only did he make the store clean as new, but he also tidied up the utility room that was originally full of sundries and express boxes. Such an impressive success stunned Jiang Qi, who was exhausted from cleaning the dormitory in college to cope with school inspections.

Another person who was stunned was Liu Lan. From her shocked expression, Jiang Qi could tell that the sanitary conditions in their dormitory were probably also shocking.

"Lanlan, we have something to do, so we'll leave first." Jiang Qi still had to take Old John to buy some spare clothes, otherwise the cheap shops on the street would be closed if it was any later.

"Oh, OK." Lan Lan was sitting at the front desk eating noodles. She nodded incoherently with her mouth full of noodles. She forced a big mouthful of noodles and shouted to Jiang Qi who had stepped out of the store, "Come early tomorrow afternoon. We'll rehearse the performance."

"knew."