The boss's plan
How can two skinny little brats save a huge monster like the Prophet?
I believe that no matter who you ask this question to, they will just think you are crazy.
All the undercurrents that had just been discussed came to an awkward halt. Pingping and I stared at each other for a while, waiting eagerly for the other to come up with some clever trick, and then we both shook our heads honestly.
No matter how hard you try to understand the essence of the matter, there is still no solution.
Although Laoban and Sanyi didn't have such a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the incident, it didn't stop them from trying to find a way out. From this point of view, even if Pingping and I suddenly jumped in front of them, we would at most reiterate to run quickly and explain the whole story so that everyone would understand the death more clearly.
"So we are the two cheerleaders who were accidentally spoiled." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
The little girl Xu Ping still shook her head and said seriously, we can only be regarded as little monkeys transformed by Sun Wukong using the hair on the back of his head. Our magical powers can be taken back at any time and we will be reduced to our original form.
Jokes aside, we started to seriously discuss how we could pass the clues to the person playing hide-and-seek.
The good news is that there are about 20 Xu Ranxings over there. Even if most of them are not very pure, their brain circuits should be consistent with mine. If we can pass on even a few words, it is likely that I will be able to understand them over there.
At this time, Pingping proposed an idea. She asked, "Ranran, who do you think the personalities that appeared alternately in these two "immortal" bodies before you and I appeared came from?"
I was stunned, and then I reacted immediately, and my eyes lit up:
"You mean, this isn't the first time you and I have been together like this."
This may sound absurd at first, but if you think about it carefully, it is very possible.
The Stone Forest has been vacant for a long time, with no human traffic at all. The mine prophet cannot hunt out of thin air, and the only people he comes into contact with are the mountain people, Zhang's friend who had been here before, and the recent group of people playing hide-and-seek.
Mountain people are like inedible stinking stones to the prophet. Even if he wants to swallow them, he cannot really digest them. Take computer programs as an example. Their personalities are like a pile of data that cannot be copied or read.
Then in this situation, the prophet's only target for successful food seems to be the twenty or so Xu Ranxings, and he has no choice even if he wants to be picky. Even worse, the twenty or so Xu Ranxings are essentially fake people, including the one who made me appear, who may also be a fake person, and the personality data he can provide is false, so the prophet is likely to eat second-hand air.
I thought about that scene and found that it was a bit too darkly humorous.
However, if this is the case, the first reaction of Xu Ranxing and Xu Ping who woke up in these two pseudo-human bodies one after another would definitely be to recognize each other and exchange information;
Maybe it is not always possible to witness the shocking moment when those transparent water marks are digested and lose their human form like it is now, but many conclusions can still be deduced in the same way.
"So I thought, first of all, since the goddess only appeared in Shilin's past, maybe 'Xu Ping' had contact with the prophet before his death, but I don't know why it is not in my memory.
And logically speaking, Xu Ping was the last food that the Prophet of the Mine had seen when he was completely incapacitated and stranded. "
"The prophet instinctively repeated the last action before dying, repeatedly simulating Xu Ping's personality and filling it into the remaining pseudo-human shell. The goddess never died, and there were countless Ping Pings taking turns to take over."
"After that, the people who hid themselves in hiding came and brought a large number of 'Xu Ranxing' with them. The second body might have been filled and revived, awakening you one after another, and meeting Xu Ping many times."
"You and I now are just one of countless meetings."
She blinked slowly. "The commander of the hide-and-seek game, the boss you mentioned... is it possible that the clues he got were passed on to him by a previous duo?"
That is a good thing, because it means someone has already explored the road ahead and found a solution. We just need to follow the map.
But at this moment I had a very ominous premonition.
I was wondering what the boss meant when he emphasized to me that I should find an unchanging object to bring back. I originally thought that he was really just trying to escape and be rescued, but now the more I understand, the more I feel that he seemed to have deliberately let me appear here.
If his actions were a reminder from here, then the most unchanging thing I can think of is the goddess herself.
Because the prophet belonging to the Hidden Man still has the possibility of struggling to escape, Xu Ranxing will not be the only one on its menu. In this body of mine, one day it may not be Xu Ranxing who appears.
But the mine prophet was already disabled and on the verge of death, and his last successful act of eating was forever frozen in the moment of feeding the goddess, and would remain solidified and sealed like this forever.
There is no one more impossible than the goddess.
If we succeed in escaping and leave here safely with the hidden prophet, there is a great chance that we can save the fake people and also save me who has been severely contaminated by the prophet.
But the premise of this safety is that I must find the signal source "stone" that the prophet placed in my body, destroy it, and disconnect it, so that the prophet can no longer read me. Only in this way can the bridge of mutual entanglement and induction between the two prophets be temporarily lost.
But at the same time, after the connection is disconnected, the body of the miner I am in will once again become a source of no water.
The me now may be able to survive in the harsh environment of the mine for a few more days, a week or more if I'm lucky, and then I will die, and then this empty body will fall down.
The moment I dropped the heavy stone and regained my freedom, for the Prophet, my personality data was lost forever, which meant that there would never be a new Xu Ranxing entering this body and opening his eyes.
By that time, only the immortal goddess will be here, guarding my empty body alone, until the Prophet of the Mine finally dies completely in the endless pain of decay.
Even though I know that neither I nor Pingping are real now, and are most likely just an illusion created by the prophet's mimicry, I still feel a huge sense of palpitations and desolation.
I suddenly felt a strong sense of malice and suspicion.
Boss, are those twenty or so Xu Ranxings really completely passive and unable to find any way to save themselves?
They tricked me and tricked me down, letting the last person who might be Xu Ranxing be trapped here. Was it really just a risk taken out of desperation?
As an outsider, Sanyi doesn't seem to be fully aware of the situation, but if I were the boss, after discovering this dead end which is ridiculous in some sense, I would not be able to abandon Pingping as an indirect cost.
Rather, if escaping this predicament would mean a totally unacceptable price to pay, why should I leave?
I have no feelings for the fake people. There is a precedent of Taiwanese people peeling people's skins for fun, and there are fake people behind the scenes trying to create artificial weird stories and concoct tragedies such as the travel company. In fact, whether it is a fake person or a prophet, if they are all destroyed here, it may not be a bad thing for everyone.
The only concern is that there are hide-and-seek survivors outside, and there is a one in ten thousand chance that the dripping phenomenon will spread to the outside world, and when they come into contact with other ghost stories, it may cause new changes and dangers.
Therefore, from this rational and almost cruel perspective, it is necessary to trap and capture all those who may cause the prophet's influence to spread in the stone forest.
To be honest, apart from now, is there any other opportunity to exterminate both the false man and the prophet? Under normal circumstances, it is impossible for humans to touch the prophet and cause harm to it.
The pseudo-people will instinctively protect themselves and survive, and in critical moments they will enter a hysterical state like Taizai; with the existence of the prophet, humans have no practical and effective means to truly kill the pseudo-people, except for the pseudo-people who naturally wither and fall off after being contaminated and abandoned by the prophet.
Only when all the fake people temporarily become Xu Ranxing in this unexpected event, will it be possible to reach a consensus in a vague and silent tacit understanding, build a cage of lies, and forcibly control the instinct for survival with human will.
Now thinking back, the reason why all the pseudo-people turned into Xu Ranxing was most likely because of Taizi's complete death, which caused the decay to spread to the prophet himself. The large number of dripping water incidents meant that the prophet suddenly lost control and became weak, which was manifested externally as the abnormal stimulation of the desire to prey.
So when I, the food that had just been marked by Taiwanese, appeared in the same room with a large number of pseudo-people who were eager to eat, it was very likely that they would lose control.
But it just so happens that I have been infected with a serious drip reaction, mixed with potential contamination accumulated from various strange stories, and even just revisited my old place and returned to the Rat Palace, so I can be said to have all five poisons.
Therefore, my food is just an undercooked vegetable, and eating it will definitely cause trouble. The eating and digestive systems collapsed and became disordered in an instant, which was probably a double whammy for the prophet.
The right time, the right place and the right people all combined to create the cold joke that "Xu Ranxing is everywhere".
Such an opportunity will never come again.
Whether it was through being eaten and coming before Pingping to have a brief reunion with her, or taking the opportunity to hunt down the prophet himself, this was the only black luck.
I seemed to see a picture. It was the boss who was trapped after going into the water. He accidentally noticed the clues left by another Xu Ranxing and Xu Ping. After a brief despair and anger, he realized the cause and effect of the matter, and also understood the tragic ending that the goddess was destined to not escape.
Then, after a long silence, he began to contact other companions on the ground who were still unaware.
If they cannot be saved, then just destroy them together and let the false people and prophets disappear completely from this world.
But he does not completely trust his own morality. He does not trust whether he will retreat and lose his composure at the last moment of life and death. He also does not trust whether the pseudo-people who are still safe will empathize with and accept the terrible plan that he suddenly came up with. He only trusts his kind who are in the same harsh environment with no way to retreat.
So the first thing he had to do was to trap everyone in the underwater mine, making sure that no one would have any way to escape even if they collapsed from regret after learning the truth.
As Xu Ranxing's boss, he was using lies to lure all his kind into the cage one by one. All his concealments and seemingly casual attitude were derived from the cold and calm attitude of waiting for death.
A sudden chill ran down my spine, but I had to admit that I had no reason to blame him.
If I were just me, or if Xu Ranxing was just Xu Ranxing, and I still had family and friends to tie me down to, I wouldn't necessarily be so determined and extreme to the point of self-destruction.
But as a fake person, he vaguely realizes that he will always be just a fake thing, and will never have a real personality self and freedom. He can only pursue ignorance forever. At the moment when the prophet is unprecedentedly weak, he can finally have a moment of clarity and respite... What will such a person do?
The answer seems obvious. I am unwilling to accept this. This hybrid me, from the dual perspectives of Xu Ranxing and the pseudo-man, made a consistent choice.
I should even be grateful that he chose to let me come here to see Pingping, while he himself was still staying in the water waiting for the ending.
But once I realized this, I looked at Xu Ping in front of me and was at a loss as to what to do.
Because at the same time, Pingping asked me casually, "Ranran, you seem to have suddenly relaxed and are no longer anxious."
I was speechless, and when I met her dark eyes, I found the familiar understanding in them.
Yes, who could be more familiar with my current sudden change of mentality than someone who has been tortured by weakness since childhood and is always waiting for death calmly?
After so many years, I can now truly empathize with the feeling of waiting for time to wear away the shadow of death. It turns out that it is so painful to accept this fact.
Pingping moved closer and grabbed my wet palm with her cold little hand again.
This time I didn't hide.
She stared at me with compassion in her dark, bright eyes, giving me the illusion that I was the child who had been frozen forever since our separation twelve years ago, and she was the adult who had grown up and moved on.
No, Pingping has always been the precocious one. When I didn't fully understand the pain and was only vaguely afraid of my sister's illness, Pingping, who was still a child, also looked at me like this, only occasionally revealing the childish innocence that a person of the same age should have.
The strange thing is that I can still clearly remember what she said on the hospital bed.
"Of course, I'm not someone you need to sacrifice anything to protect. I don't need anyone to protect me, nor do I need anyone to stay for me."
After so many years, Xu Ping actually said the same thing, looking at me seriously and saying:
"So, don't hide it from me. I should know things about myself. Mom said that in our family, whether adults or children, they can make their own choices."
After saying that, she lowered her head and complained a little: "I knew you were just trying to fool me." At the same time, she raised her eyes and secretly glanced at me. It was obvious that she wanted to act cheating and act pitiful, but she was not very skilled at it.
I don’t know if I smiled so awkwardly or not, but I raised my hands in surrender for the second time today.
I spent some time carefully sorting out the boss's possible plans and told her, without hiding the dark and radical nature of the plan. I also frankly said that since the boss wanted to die together, he must have found that there was really no way to save her and that was why he was so desperate.
Xu Ping was a little dazed after listening to this. After a while, he looked at me with a bit of helplessness and disgust.
"...You are a bunch of unreliable adults."
She stood up, brushed off the remaining stone chips on her body, and a smile appeared on her face that was completely unexpected to me.
It was as if in these two short days filled with misery and unknown fear, a new and bizarre world was unfolding before her eyes, allowing her to see many different possibilities. Even though she was in a state of extreme embarrassment now, the curiosity and satisfaction that came from her heart could not be concealed.
"Then let's improve this plan. Since we want to harm the prophet, we can't just have you, Ranran, do the work."
She smiled, her eyes a little red, and her eyes were brighter than ever before: "I have been waiting to be a villain for many years, and now is the time for me to appear."
I stared at her in a daze, and suddenly I had a feeling that it seemed that my sister had only today broken free from many unknown sufferings, truly come back to life, and started over again the childhood she had never had.
Even though this begins in the horror and gloom of a ghost story, she can indeed stop being so mature and quiet, and instead become more and more like a child, laughing and being cheerful.
I sighed and laughed. It was hard to tell what the complex emotions were. "Okay, little monkey. Where do we start? From now on, I will follow your instructions."
"I was the one in command."
She insisted in a low voice, then motioned for me, who was still sitting, to lower my head and look under the mine cars.
The two of us have always kept our distance from the transparent water in the mine cart, and I have also been on guard against the corrosive water overflowing from the mine cart and launching some attack on us.
Now Xu Ping asked me to look under the mine car, which surprised me a little.
Is there something under the mine cart? But seeing that she mentioned it now, it didn't seem to be anything dangerous or important.
A little puzzled, I lowered my head as level as possible with the ground and glanced under the mine car.
In my field of vision, I was unexpectedly met with a pair of very embarrassing eyes.
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