Shi Yuntian gripped the heavy blade tightly in both hands, with a frosty feeling and strong murderous intent, and slashed at Su Jian.
"Hey! Stop it!" Yu Qimiao was pushed to the ground by Lu Shufan. He hurriedly got up and wanted to defend Su Jing.
Unfortunately, it's too late.
"Ka--"
The heavy blade chopped down on his head with a fighting spirit.
Su Qiong could have relied on his lightness to float up and dodge the attack. However, he simply pulled the bandage away from Yu Qimiao and wrapped it around Shi Yuntian's wrist instead, hindering his next move.
It hovered two centimeters away from Su Jing's head, barely still.
Su Jing knew very well that the bandage could only withstand one blow.
Shi Yuntian had played so many games and was so experienced in combat that he knew full well the truth that 'villains are defeated by their talk, and those who talk too much are doomed to fail'. He attacked directly, not giving Su Jian any chance.
Su Jing felt the pressure from the world champion, but he remained calm.
As a veteran player, Shi Yuntian should not rashly kill NPCs at the beginning of the game.
besides.
——Su Jing is actually not that afraid of death.
He was even more curious about whether the knife in Shi Yuntian's hand could kill Code.
"Heh." Shi Yuntian stared at him for a moment and sneered coldly, "That's it? I've already taken action myself, so show me your true abilities."
After saying that, he glanced at Yu Qishen.
The all-powerful boss had been frightened into such a foolish state by a little marshmallow. If they returned alive, Shi Yuntian would definitely rush into Yu Qimiao's company, carrying a 360-degree surround sound system and mocking him.
Su Jing numbly tightened the bandage, trying to shut Shi Yuntian's mouth.
"Use some strength, you loser! Haven't you eaten yet? Where's the plastic wrap?" Shi Yuntian urged carelessly, "Where are your skills? Where are your weapons? Let them out and have a look!"
Su Jian: ...
Otherwise, you might as well kill me.
"Doesn't he have any attack skills?" Lu Shufan raised his arm, intending to scan Su Jing with his bracelet.
The bracelet did not respond and even the operation page did not appear.
Yu Qimiao looked down at his bracelet and found it was also disabled.
Su Jing lowered his head, fiddled with it for a while, and showed them the latest tips.
[This instance is a decryption instance, players are prohibited from using wristbands.]
He held the board in his hand, and his round head seemed to be filled with the desire to survive: "I am useful, I am capable, please let me go."
Marshmallow's face has no facial features, but it looks cute and aggrieved.
It’s, it’s quite cute.
The look in Shi Yuntian's eyes when he looked at Su Jing suddenly had a filter.
"I see." Shi Yuntian retracted his heavy blade and rubbed Su Jian's cotton candy head. "You are quite capable, kid. What next?"
Su Jing shook his head and poked the control panel again.
[The user is detected as a low-level NPC and is not authorized to view more information. ]
"Tsk." Shi Yuntian shook his head. "Waste, you are such a waste."
Su Jian: ...
"Well, that's pretty much what I guessed." Lu Shufan stood up and dusted himself off. "The first person to appear in the game is indeed the guiding NPC."
Yu Qisiao muttered again, "Guide the NPC?"
"Yeah, Yuyu, haven't you played exploration games before?" Lu Shufan explained, "There's a trick to playing puzzle games. When the system provides limited information, you must obtain it through NPCs."
Shi Yuntian raised his sword and taunted, "Even if this isn't a puzzle game, you can't just attack an NPC. If you trigger their berserk state, we'll all be dead."
At this point, Shi Yuntian's expression became serious for the first time. "Or, you believed that Apple's lies and thought that you could be resurrected, so death wouldn't matter."
"Don't die so easily~" Lu Shufan whispered, "You have to know: all the gifts given by fate have already been secretly marked with a price."
"IF" is extremely dangerous. Who knows what price to pay for coming back from the dead?
Yu Qimiao finally realized his mistake and frowned, "I've never played games."
really.
Su Jian could feel that Yu Qi Miao’s IQ was online, but there was a huge gap in experience between him and veteran players.
"It's okay, it's okay. We've all been here since we were newbies." Lu Shufan glared at him crazily, "Work with us~ Let Boss Shi protect you~"
"It's none of my business!" Shi Yuntian was extremely disgusted with his behavior of selling out his teammates.
Lu Shufan made his own arrangements and included Su Jing in the team.
"And you little loser, it's too dangerous for you to wander around." Lu Shufan was obviously greedy for other people's clues, but he showed a harmless expression and did it for your own good.
Su Jing had no objection.
Although the process was tortuous, the goal was achieved.
Three novice players, along with a weak NPC, formed a temporary alliance.
While they were "playing around", other players had already started to act separately and explore the terrain of Gangan Village.
The theme of this dungeon is 'poverty', and players have already prepared themselves mentally before entering the village.
But the poverty in Gangan Village is more deadly than they imagined.
Looking at the entire village, there are no decent houses, only caves dug randomly at the foot of the mountain and on the mountainside, and broken walls made of waste stones.
No matter how poor other villages are, even if they are wild tribes with no income, they at least have crops or hunting grounds.
Not even a weed grows on the land within Gangan Village. Because the mountains are so crowded with people, animals don't dare use them as a habitat. For miles around, there's no living creature besides humans.
I really don’t know how the people in the village usually solve the problem of food.
If the environment is just barren, players will think that the system is deliberately making things difficult for them and not allowing them to complete the main quest.
but--
There is a river in the middle of Gangan Village, dividing the entire village into two halves.
As the setting sun shines, the green river banks are like two barriers, and the crimson river water flows slowly.
On the other side of the river, red flowers bloomed, trees were lush and green, and birds were singing everywhere. Several wooden houses along the river were exquisitely crafted and brightly lit.
The fish took seven steps and tried to cross the river to the other side.
Lu Shufan stretched out his hand to stop him, "You can't get through, look over there."
Yu Qi Miao followed his gaze and saw a sign made of half a stone tablet on the river bank.
'Sun and Moon River'
The few small words at the bottom have become blurred due to wind and sun, and the words "Do not enter this river" can be vaguely distinguished.
Previously, a few players, relying on their good swimming skills, planned to swim to the other side, but they were swept far away by the river and had to crawl back to the shore in a panic.
"Why do I feel like there are a few people missing?" Shi Yuntian asked, "Where are the female players at the village entrance?"
Su Jing opened the control panel and held it in front of him: three players voluntarily gave up the game.
"Normally. The old man at the entrance of the village looked like he was going to eat them. If it were me, I wouldn't dare come in either."
"Are there any consequences for giving up the game?"
Su Jian poked the bracelet, and the page displayed four words: Game failed.
"Then what?"
Su Jing shook his head.
He is just a low-level NPC with limited knowledge of the rules.
If the system does not delegate authority, he will not be able to access more information.
The so-called guiding NPC is more accurately described as guiding players to solve puzzles together.
"What should we do next?" The three of them looked at each other, not knowing who to listen to for a moment, and then turned their eyes to Su Jing.
Shi Yuntian and Lu Shufan are veteran players with a lot of experience, but they don't fully trust Su Jian yet.
Keeping him around is nothing more than taking advantage of the hints he gives.
People who often play games know that in many killing games, "white name" can be converted to "red name", and the price is...
The rules in the hypothetical game apply to NPCs in "IF".
So, Su Jing’s current white name does not mean that he will always be in the white name status.
While he hasn't turned popular yet, the more opportunities there are to take advantage of him, the better.
Su Jian tapped the screen, and four words popped up: Follow the plot.
He could sense the cunning of these two veteran players, but he didn't hate it.
There is no need to make friends with people you just met by chance. After this copy is over, you can part ways with them without any pressure and look for new people to guide you.
There are a total of five million players in the novice area of "IF", all of whom are his potential mission targets.
Su Jing gave the prompt of "follow the plot", and shouts of calling player IDs were heard from all directions.
The other players around looked over in the direction of the sound, their expressions slightly stunned.
"Dad? Why are you in the game too?"
"Brother, why are you wearing tattered old clothes? Did my family go bankrupt just after I entered the game?"
"Ahhh what the hell! Rest in peace, old man! I'll definitely burn paper for you next Qingming Festival!"
The villagers that appear before the players look just like their relatives in real life.
They ignored the players' exaggerated reactions, walked over calling their names, forcibly grabbed their hands, and dragged them straight into the cave.
In just a few minutes, only three people and an NPC were left outside the cave.
"Wait, what's going on?"
Su Qiong explained: They are mimic NPCs, able to imitate the players' relatives based on their real situations. Mimic NPCs have no attributes and are mainly responsible for advancing the plot.
"I see, why don't we have it?"
Su Jing: You have no parents.
"Heh, who are you scolding?" Shi Yuntian scratched his ears and said irritably, "What if I had parents? In our circle, if people start to talk dirty, no matter how many parents we have, they won't be enough."
Yu Qi Miao: "I am an orphan."
Lu Shufan: "Good fellow, why don't we just change the name to the Orphan Alliance?"
"Let's get down to business. What should we do now?"
Other players pushed the plot forward by mimicking NPCs, leaving them as a group of orphans, stuck in a stalemate.
Before Su Jian could operate, he heard the sound of a wooden stick being driven into the mud. A hunched old woman, leaning on a cane, walked over with the support of her granddaughter.
Several people were surprised to see the ordinary-dressed old woman and the thin girl beside her.
These two people were the only two women they met after entering Gangan Village.
"It's freezing outside, what are you guys standing around for?" The old woman came forward and introduced herself amiably, "I'm the head of Gangan Village. You can just call me Grandma Li. This is my granddaughter, Li Ting."
Li Ting didn't say anything. She hid behind her grandmother and timidly looked at the stranger with her big black eyes.
Judging from her appearance alone, she was probably fourteen or fifteen, the age of a normal girl in junior high school. Her limbs were incredibly thin, as if they could break if she squeezed them tightly, but her figure was well-developed, with a plump chest.
Li Ting was wearing a bright cotton jacket without any patches, which was probably the best clothes in the whole village.
Grandma Li must love her precious granddaughter very much.
Thinking of the greedy and hungry eyes of the old bachelors at the village entrance, everyone couldn't help but worry about Li Ting.
"You've come all the way here, thank you for the hard work. Come to my house and have a seat." Grandma Li invited them to go home, and several people immediately realized that this was a mimic NPC assigned to the orphans by the system.
"Oh my gosh, thank you, village chief!" Lu Shufan took the initiative to support the grandmother instead of Li Ting. He used skillful words to find out the situation in the village in a few words.
As expected of a big anchor, he is the social ceiling of the team.
Shi Yuntian and Yu Qimiao followed behind, but Su Jing stayed where he was.
“?” Shi Yuntian looked over suspiciously, afraid that the NPC would do something weird.
Su Jian opened his board and began typing: "I'm an NPC, I don't need to follow the storyline. You didn't check the terrain just now, I'll check it for you, maybe it can trigger new clues."
"Then you better be careful." Yu Qimiao was concerned.
In the entire team, he was the only one who believed in Su Jing wholeheartedly.
Shi Yuntian couldn't help but feel heartbroken: Boss Yu trusted the NPC so easily, how did he survive in the business war?
All the players were taken into the cave by the mimic NPC, and only Su Jian was left wandering around in the huge village.
He roughly walked around the village twice, and sure enough, it was consistent with the system's description. There were only a few women in the huge village. Except for Li Ting, they were all old ladies, and there were no women of marriageable age.
But strangely, there are many very young children in the village.
Sujian is a code that places great emphasis on scientific common sense.
Since there are no women of marriageable age, how are these children born?
Cell division or alpha reproduction?
Or did they once have a mother?
Su Jing was deep in thought, and suddenly thought of a horrifying detail.
——Before entering the village, the villagers sang a nursery rhyme:
'Gan Gan Village, bare poles, where is my daughter-in-law?
Ask my mother, ask my sister, where is my wife?
The nursery rhyme itself was strange enough. After exploring everywhere, Su Qiong discovered that the mother, sister, and daughter-in-law in the nursery rhyme were...
There is none in Gangan Village!
At least, not now.
Gangan Village is surrounded by mountains on two sides and the Sun Moon River runs through another. The only way out is through the village entrance. Hundreds of caves, large and small, are found at the foot and along the mountainside. All the villagers live in these caves, and many remain uninhabited.
Su Jian targeted the abandoned grottoes, intending to explore them, but discovered they were boarded shut. Relying on his agility, he slipped the bandage through the cracks, finding it pitch black, devoid of any sign of life.
When I pulled back the bandage, I found that the edge of the white bandage was stained with dark red stains.
rust?
Gangan Village does not have any metal resources, so why is there rust in the caves?
"What are you doing there?" A voice suddenly sounded from behind.
Su Jing turned around and saw the old bachelor at the village entrance.
In the moonlight, his face looked even more ferocious, and he was holding a long, flat-headed wooden stick in his hand.
The stick dragged along the ground, pushing aside the gravel, and the horrible sound of the collision echoed in the silent night.
The old bachelor approached Su Jian and asked hoarsely, "Do you want to go in?"
Su Jing did not answer, but quickly escaped from the old bachelor, trying to float far away to explore more areas.
But if you go further, you will reach the unopened boundary of the copy.
After he entered the dungeon, like ordinary players, he was unable to reach unopened areas.
Su Jian put away the bandage and floated towards the fish for seven seconds following the previous mark.
On the way back, I passed by many caves and saw the players living in harmony with their "relatives".
Most of the caves had no doors, so they couldn't keep out the cold. Inside, the walls were bare, and there was no decent food on the table. However, the "relatives" were very friendly to the players, almost like real family.
When Su Jing returned to Grandma Li's house, he saw Grandma Li lighting a stove for them and bringing out a plate of precious stir-fried vegetables, which even had some minced meat in it.
"The village slaughtered a pig this year. As the village chief, they gave me some extra food. Please don't be disgusted by it."
"How could that be?"
"Thank you, Village Chief Grandma!"
The senses in the game are the same as those in the outside world. Players are forced into this game and have not eaten yet, so they are already hungry.
Lu Shufan was a sociable person by nature. He took the steamed bun handed to him by Grandma Li, opened his mouth and was about to take a bite when he heard a shrill scream in his ears.
"ah--!"
The screams were painful and sad, breaking the silence of the night.
Yu Qimiao and Shi Yuntian reacted quickly and rushed out of the cave immediately.
Judging from the direction, the screams came from the house of the one who obeys me and wins.
There are no street lights in Gangan Village, and one can only rely on the light of candles in the cave and the bright moonlight to barely see the situation clearly.
He who obeys me wins rushed out of the cave, pressed the mimic NPC who played his relative to the ground, raised a stone high, and hit him hard on the head.
"Where's the money? You old bastard, I need money! Give me some gold coins!" The one who obeys me wins with great force, and the stone is completely stained red with blood.
"IF" has a very high degree of realism. The blood in the game not only has color and temperature, but even emits a bloody smell, which gradually envelops the entire village.
The NPC's skull was sunken, and sticky brain matter was leaking out. He begged for mercy with slurred words, "Stop hitting me, kid. Please stop. I'll give you money. I'll go to the city to make money for you tomorrow."
"Can we go into the city tomorrow? Haha, I got another clue. As expected, you old bones deserve a beating." The follower licked the blood from his lips and raised the stone high. "Where's the money at home? Tell me!"
The NPC mimic showed a look of horror, "Where is the money at home? I'll give it all to you..."
"Pah—"
Whoever follows me wins and hits me hard again.
"How can such a small amount be enough? I need money, lots of money!"
A very young boy rushed over and tried to stop him several times, but was pushed away by the man who followed me, and his young body hit the rocks heavily.
There were a few soft-hearted players around who wanted to step forward to stop the one who obeyed me from winning, but they didn't dare to offend the only living strategy guide for "IF".
"Don't be impulsive. He's just an NPC in the game." Shi Yuntian stopped Yu Qishen, who was about to step forward. "Everything you see is just an illusion created by the game's code and materials."
"..." Yu Qi seconds later retracted his feet and gradually calmed down.
He turned his head and glanced at the quiet Su Jian.
"Ah——!" The NPC on the ground was hanging on with only one breath left, staring at the winner in pain.
He who follows me wins raised the stone and smashed it down on the face that looked exactly like his father's again, bursting into laughter.
"Do you know how my brother was brought into the game? Because he is as bad as me! He just likes to see others struggling in pain, begging me like this, and then dying in despair." The face of "Whoever Obeys Me Will Win" was stained red with blood. He hit the dead corpse several times, smashing the hardest part of the skull into pieces.
The NPC died completely, its body turning into the white mosaic of a broken TV and gradually disappearing.
He who follows me wins. A system prompt appears above his head: Experience value +10, level increased to Lv2.
Two hundred yuan was left on the blood-stained ground.
The system prompts "The average annual income of villagers is 200", is this what it means?
He who follows me wins. He pocketed the two hundred yuan and glanced around smugly. "Did you see that? This is the correct way to beat the game. My brother said that in the world of IF, you score points by killing anything. Killing powerful characters, like high-level players and system NPCs, will earn you generous rewards."
After saying this, his gaze passed through the crowd and fell directly on Su Jian, his blood-red mouth grinning even wider.
"Look, what good stuff did I find?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
