Chapter 178

The young man was stunned.

Captain Xu stared intently at his expression, trying to discern any signs of panic or guilt.

But the young man didn't. He just sighed helplessly, "I know I don't have much of a presence, but Captain Xu, after we entered the game, I hid behind you with the others... Have you forgotten?"

There was a blind spot behind him, but Captain Xu wasn't standing still.

As he instructed his team to disperse the crowd, he glanced back a few times. Most people mistook them for expert players and huddled at the back like chicks seeking their mother hen; indeed, a large group of them had gathered, at least twenty or thirty.

Captain Xu didn't remember this young man.

He winked at his teammates: Do you remember him?

The team member shook his head very slightly.

The incident happened suddenly, and I immediately encountered Slender Man. I didn't have time to remember what each of them looked like.

Captain Xu turned around and looked the young man over again.

To be honest, she's not bad-looking, but she's not particularly distinctive. Her clothes and appearance are simple and plain, and she'd easily blend into a crowd.

Captain Xu waved the poster in his hand: "Where did you find this?"

The young man pointed in a direction and said, "After that monster came back to life, I felt a bit scared of it, so I instinctively ran in that direction. On the way, I encountered a doll handing out flyers, and I saw a stack of promotional posters next to it. When it wasn't paying attention, I quickly grabbed one."

"Wait a minute!" Captain Xu narrowed his eyes. "Didn't you say you were hiding behind me the whole time?"

“No, not all the time,” the young man corrected. “After I got the poster, I felt it was an important clue. When I saw that the dolls had blocked the road, I felt that I couldn’t break through on my own, so I ran back.”

He frankly admitted that he had deserted at the last minute but then returned, and his expression was quite composed.

Captain Xu's suspicions immediately deepened.

If the person had been hiding in the crowd from the beginning, with their face obscured by others the whole time, they might not have remembered.

But wouldn't people around notice someone who runs away and then comes back?

To avoid unsettling the situation, Captain Xu concealed the suspicion in his eyes and patted the young man on the shoulder with a friendly smile: "Young man, you have a good reaction time. This clue is very useful to us. By the way, what's your name?"

The force was a bit too much. The young man grimaced and took a deep breath before answering cooperatively, "Yan Chuyi."

How old are you?

Twenty-one.

"He hasn't graduated from university yet?"

"No, I had already graduated when I entered the game. I enrolled a year earlier than my peers."

The young man pushed up his glasses and gave a wry smile: "I just haven't had time to find a job yet."

The Infinite Game arrived in the summer, which was also the university graduation season.

"I see." Captain Xu looked at the young man with a hint of sympathy in his eyes.

Anyone who is pulled into an endless game as soon as they graduate, with all their hard-earned education going to waste, would probably break down.

He then asked the young man several questions, such as his strength and main abilities.

This isn't considered invading privacy; a typical temporary team would reveal a general outline to facilitate teamwork and coordination.

The young man did not hide anything and revealed everything.

His stats are roughly at level B, and his abilities are [keen perception], [clue investigation], and [intermediate healing].

These skills would have been very useful in the early days, but now they are completely insufficient to qualify for the S-rank trial.

The young man said helplessly that he did not participate voluntarily, but was an unlucky guy selected by the "all-out front" model.

Some of his companions wanted to come in with him, but he refused. They were all equally weak, and he couldn't let anyone die with him.

The conversation seemed to have nothing wrong with it.

Captain Xu patted his shoulder sympathetically again: "Since you're worried you can't handle it alone, then come with us. It's good to have more people to help each other."

The young man hesitated slightly, but since he had said it himself, he had no reason to refuse, so he agreed.

Captain Xu noticed his hesitation and turned to call the others to assemble. The player who had been turned into a doll was still alive and was carefully put into his companion's spatial backpack. If no one claimed him, the Peak Squad would keep him temporarily.

The remaining approximately 120 people headed together to the amusement park on the east side.

*

The cloaked figure in the ink-wash space scoffed at Xie Xubai's disguise without any politeness: "His wording is full of loopholes, and his acting is so stupid. If you pull out a clean poster from a pile of ruins, who else would be suspicious if not you?"

Not only is Xie Xubai incredibly stupid, but he is also extremely stupid.

They wondered how Xie Xubai knew the clues in the dungeon, but forgot that Xie Xubai had a photographic memory, and the destruction of the amusement park had no effect on him at all.

The cloaked figure pondered that this guy, whose sense of crisis was so strong that he could wake up from his dreams at any moment, probably had deliberately scoured all the information during the short period when his consciousness entered the chessboard world.

There are no posters, and the clues given in S-level dungeons are not so obvious or simple.

The poster was fabricated by Xie Xubai; it was nothing more than a piece of paper and a few suggestive elements.

The poster showed Xie Xubai seeing the slogan "Fight for the King" on an advertisement. By observing the number of nearby dolls and the direction of their eerie energy, he eliminated the death traps and found the real attraction.

Finally, these scattered pieces of information are connected to summarize a logical line that is almost identical to the actual situation.

Xie Xubai, after all, has a god-like perspective. It's not surprising that he can find clues in just two or three minutes that would take other players at least half a day to collect.

What puzzled the cloaked man was that Xie Xubai was meticulous in handling every clue, so why was he so careless and negligent in disguising his identity?

Could it be that...

The cloaked figure squinted leisurely: "You deliberately aroused their suspicion?"

Whether arousing suspicion is good or bad depends on whose suspicion it arouses.

Take Captain Xu's personality for example, Xie Xubai won't be able to escape his sight anytime soon.

Who knows, I might be forced into this situation again. After all, experienced players know a thing or two: to tell if someone is up to no good or has a suspicious identity, just look at their subconscious reaction in a life-or-death situation.

Xie Xubai didn't respond to what he said, but instead asked in a flat tone, "Then what about 'Survivor'? Is that your only identity?"

The cloaked figure twitched the corner of his mouth, a forced smile: "Guess?"

After Xie Xubai explained the reason, although the cloaked man's mouth twitched and he looked constipated, he didn't deny it in the end and simply said the name of "survivor".

The two swore an oath through a contract, so there's no possibility of them lying. However, the definition of "survivor" is too general; any of the 300 million players in the game space could call themselves a survivor, which is pointless.

It's not just cheating, it's worse than cheating.

Fortunately, Xie Xubai remained calm and had anticipated that the other party would play tricks.

Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly heard the cloaked man say excitedly, "Xie Xubai, that amusement park ride was specially prepared for you. If you can play it without any problems from beginning to end, I can tell you about another identity."

Xie Xubai didn't even blink, and said calmly, "It seems that Brian was arranged by you on purpose."

Not every god-level player is as irritable and arrogant as Brian.

Therefore, the cloaked man chose Brian, anticipating that he would spare no effort in using his divine power to deal with Slender Man, even to the point of destroying most of the game arena.

Anticipating that Xie Xubai would turn him into a pawn, he would disguise himself as a player to join the team, and in the end, he had no choice but to follow the crowd to the only surviving amusement park ride.

—That project that was specially prepared.

Xie Xubai could also do the former.

The latter... must know him extremely well.

Knowing only about his past achievements is not enough.

Could it be that the cloaked man's previous shock and anger were all an act?

The cloaked figure remained silent, gazing at him with eyes that held undisguised murderous intent and a smile as if drawn by a paintbrush.

Previously, Xie Xubai's impression of the cloaked man was that he was wearing a frivolous and crazy shell, dangerous but not real.

Now that a corner of the shell has cracked open, the creature sitting inside finally slowly turned its head, revealing its ferocious fangs, and looked at him.

Faced with the cloaked man's provocation, Xie Xubai remained silent for a moment, then slowly curled the corners of his lips into a smile: "Fine—"

Even a clay figure has a bit of fire in it.

He has always been calm, partly because of his gentle nature and his dislike of arguing.

Secondly, this way you can keep all your worries hidden and not let the people around you worry.

But the cloaked man's aggressive and relentless attitude eventually awakened a certain characteristic that Xie Xubai had always suppressed.

Xie Xubai suddenly leaned forward, rapidly closing the distance with the cloaked figure. His clear eyes, like flowing water, held a captivating madness. Their breaths were almost touching, causing the cloaked figure to catch their breath for a moment.

"Since you're going to such lengths to get my attention, why not give me a look?"

Xie Xubai's gaze was level with his, yet he seemed to be looking down at him calmly from above, his eyes crinkling with a smile as gentle as a breeze: "I hope you will—not disappoint me."

*

The smoke had not yet completely dissipated, and the air was filled with a pungent, acrid smell of burning.

Whenever players see a damaged building, they can't help but look behind them.

Brian's squad trailed behind the main force, about twenty meters away.

Players had many complaints.

Why are they still following us?

"If it weren't for that god-level player's incredible power, this place wouldn't be in such a state of destruction, and we wouldn't have been able to find a single clue."

"Could you ask them to move away? That boy's eyes are giving me the creeps; they look like he might jump up and kill me at any moment."

Someone lowered their voice and advised, "Alright, alright, don't look at them. Captain Xu gave permission to follow them. They're still god-level players, even a fallen camel is bigger than a horse. If we anger them, we'll all suffer."

Asa wasn't oblivious to the players' disapproving and disdainful looks. After being stared at so many times, the proud young man suddenly found it hard to accept.

As members of the hero squad, they were always the center of attention wherever they went, and they had never been treated like this before. They couldn't help but grind their teeth in annoyance, and were glared at several times by their comrades as a warning.

Not far away, the black tower stood silently, tall and sinister, like a man-eating monster lurking in silence.

Some people looked at the seemingly unchanged black tower and suddenly felt something strange: "We've walked for so long, but why do we still feel so far away from that tower?"

The distant is vast, the near is small. They have already traversed most of the game field, but the image of the Black Tower still seems infinitely small.

Before long, they finally arrived at their destination.

Although it wasn't hit by the thunderstorm, the hurricane it generated uprooted and toppled the surrounding trees, and destroyed signs, trash cans, grass, and fences, leaving bare dents in their places.

Under such circumstances, it's extremely strange that the amusement park tents can still stand upright in place.

A metal sign with the rules of "dodgeball" was placed in front of the tent. No game coins were required to play, but if you failed, you had to pay a part of your body as punishment.

The bottom row of small scarlet print reads: "The body parts that need to be paid after the punishment will be specified and collected by the shop owner at their discretion."

This eliminates the possibility for some players to escape by using their hair or nails as a trick.

The crowd turned pale and began to curse.

They only said it was based on their mood, without specifying anything. If the shopkeeper asked for their head or heart right away, wouldn't they just send it?

In short, it was a near-certain death situation, and everyone looked at each other in silence, unwilling to go.

After reviewing the rules, Captain Xu, as the backbone of the group, stepped forward and looked at everyone seriously: "Game qualifications are something that sounds very private, and they generally cannot be shared. It is highly likely that everyone will have to participate."

“My teammates and I can go first to give you a reference, but if no one dares to go next, no one can control you.” Captain Xu glanced at the humble eyes, softened his tone, and earnestly advised, “Including those who haven’t participated in the game for a long time, I know that being selected this time is very sudden for you and you can’t accept it, but the fact has already happened, and fear will not change anything. You must remember that running away is only delaying your death.”

Suddenly, his gaze fell on Xie Xubai beside him. Even though it wasn't shown on his face, Xie Xubai could sense his suspicion and wariness.

Sure enough, Captain Xu said, "Since no one is teaming up with you, why don't you come with me?"