Chapter 143 Autobiography (VIII)
When Jing Qiao and Gao Zhanyuan came to their senses, they found themselves in a theater.
They were standing at the edge of the stage, with a lonely beam of light shining in the center, surrounded by densely packed auditorium seats, but all of them were empty. There was no one else in the entire theater at the moment except them.
"Where is this?" Gao Zhanyuan was looking around.
Jing Qiao murmured, "Xinlian Theater."
"ah?"
"This is the Xinlian Theater of the Polytechnic Institute," Jing Qiao said with a pale face, "where the first copy took place."
Gao Zhanyuan opened his mouth and asked hesitantly: "...Are you a participant in this copy?"
"right."
"What's the situation with this copy?"
"...There are four areas in the outer field, three of which have monsters. You can get clues after clearing the level," Jing Qiao recalled. "The three clues together point to the location of the monster generator, which is on the back of the stage floor. You have to get inside the stage to get it."
"Hiss, so the copy wants us to go through it again now?"
"I don't know about that..." Jing Qiao calmed down, "Let's go look for Jiang Shuyue and Fu Xiaoju first? Didn't they almost walk into the fog just now?"
Thinking of this, Gao Zhanyuan slapped his head. The two of them turned around quickly and then froze together.
The back...is so heavy!
It was as if there were sacks of dozens of kilograms pressing on them. They couldn't feel it when they were still, but when they moved, the pressure was so severe that they couldn't even stand up.
Thinking of the name of this book, Jing Qiao's face turned even paler, and Gao Zhanyuan also swallowed.
...No way, the game hasn’t even started yet and they’ve already installed one for each of them...?
They shot frantically at each other's backs, but it was obvious that they were hitting nothing.
There is a spirit behind me, it is really a spirit. I can only feel the weight but cannot see or touch it?
"...As long as they don't come to mess with us, we can just ignore them for now," Gao Zhanyuan whispered, "Let's go!"
They crossed the passage and came to the outer corridor.
At this moment, there was thick fog outside the theater gate, and Jiang Shuyue and Fu Xiaoju were nowhere to be seen.
Could it be that these two people really walked out?
Just as he was getting anxious, Jing Qiao suddenly realized that there was something extra in his trouser pocket. He took it out and found it was a library card and a pen.
The library card now has the names of four of them, but the due dates for Jiang Shuyue and Fu Xiaoju are still blank.
"This should mean that nothing has happened to them, right?" She leaned over to discuss with Gao Zhanyuan, "But where did they go?"
Gao Zhanyuan: "Go look inside again."
However, there was no sign of them in the prop area, the aisle area, or the rehearsal area—and of course, there were no monsters either.
The entire Xinlian Theater is like a ghost town.
"Let's go look inside the stage and see if there is a monster generator there as well!" Gao Zhanyuan said relentlessly.
"Hmm!" Jing Qiao turned around——
[No, you can't get close to the stage! ]
She was startled.
The indistinguishable male or female voice suddenly burst out from my mind and shouted:
[You are confused by what you see. There is no fog outside the theater! That is the normal exit. The right way out is to walk out from there! ]
Jing Qiao was shocked and confused.
She noticed that Gao Zhanyuan's expression was a little strange: "Did you hear it too?"
Gao Zhanyuan nodded cautiously.
There was also a voice in his head preventing him from approaching the stage.
"This is weird," he muttered, "We were just next to the stage, how come there's no such sound in my head?"
Jing Qiao thought for a moment and said, "Because we didn't plan to go inside the stage?"
“But what can we do if we go in?” Gao Zhanyuan tried to analyze like Mu Yu, “Anyway, what we see outside the theater is fog. If it says there is no fog, then if it is lying to us, then we will be dead if we go out. But inside the stage, no matter if it is the correct exit or not, there is no mechanism that can kill people anyway—”
【Maybe! 】
The voice in his head immediately contradicted him.
Gao Zhanyuan also immediately stretched his neck and said, "What do you mean by 'maybe'? You are just not sure! If you are not sure, what are you talking about?"
Jing Qiao's mouth twitched.
I just started arguing with the unknown voice in my head, which is really...haha...
She looked ahead at the stage.
...For some reason, she really wanted to believe the voice in her head, like a physical instinct. Or maybe this was the mechanism of the world in this book, and players would be bewitched by the voice in their heads.
But reason told her...of course they had to go inside the stage and take a look.
That most critical place is the only place they have not checked yet.
"Let's go, Gao Zhanyuan," she pulled the corner of Gao Zhanyuan's clothes, "stop arguing with the ghost behind you."
Gao Zhanyuan froze and stared at her.
Jing Qiao laughed dryly: "It should be the spirits behind us. They can't just play the role of adding weight. They will definitely interfere with us."
...Gao Zhanyuan thought it made sense!!
So from then on, no matter how the voice in his head bothered him, he pretended not to hear it.
There was a wooden board under the stage, which Gao Zhanyuan broke with a roundhouse kick. The two men walked in, lighting their cell phones.
Groping their way to the center of the stage, they actually found a demon moon on the ceiling.
The real devil's moon.
"What do you mean? Do you want to try to crush it?" Gao Zhanyuan took the thing off. "Do you think this could be the Devil's Moon in our copy?"
"Impossible...if only it were that simple." Jing Qiao looked around. They still didn't see Fu Xiaoju and Jiang Shuyue under the stage.
Where on earth did the two of them go?
She turned around, hesitated, and whispered, "Try to crush it?"
The two men looked at each other, and Gao Zhanyuan's face became serious.
He put his five fingers together.
*
Fu Xiaoju opened his eyes, a little confused.
"Shit, I'm not going to die, am I? Why is it so dark?"
A beam of light suddenly appeared in the darkness.
Jiang Shuyue's face appeared above the beam of light, and looked like a ghost.
Fu Xiaoju was frightened and said, "Jiang Shuyue - fuck you, can you please stop doing this!"
"We actually showed up together," Jiang Shuyue ignored Fu Xiaoju's ruffled hair and muttered, "So the way out is outside the theater?"
Fu Xiaoju patted his chest and recovered from the shock.
"No way, if pushing the door and walking out is the right thing to do, then why are we in such a dark place now? This place is obviously wrong!" Fu Xiaoju felt it for a while, "And don't you feel that your back is still heavy?"
Jiang Shuyue looked hesitant.
He couldn't argue with that, and it felt like a weight was on his back.
but……
Looking around, he found a hole not far behind him, through which some light was leaking.
He waved his hand, motioning Fu Xiaoju to go with him.
The two walked towards the light...then stepped out from the stage and came into the empty theater.
They were silent for half a minute.
"So," Fu Xiaoju's mouth twitched, "we are still inside this theater. It's wrong to go out through the main door! We are stuck in a maze!"
Jiang Shuyue suddenly fell into self-doubt.
He didn't believe it: "Let's go to the corridor and have a look!"
They ran to the outer corridor—
At this moment, outside the theater gate, there is a normal night view of the science and technology campus, without any fog at all.
They could clearly see the campus walkway outside, the teaching building diagonally opposite, and the messy bicycles parked in front of the teaching building.
Fu Xiaoju was shocked.
“Look, I told you there’s no fog outside!” Jiang Shuyue said excitedly, “It’s impossible for the dungeon to let us go through the dungeons we’ve walked through before in this book again. This is too low-level. “He” can’t be that boring!”
He pushed open the glass door in front of him and walked out: "We have to walk out normally to crack the small copy in this book. He must have had some questions when he came back just now-"
*
Jing Qiao and Gao Zhanyuan came to their senses and stared blankly at the two glass doors in front of them and the thick fog rolling outside the doors.
The two looked confused, looking at their own reflections in the glass door, and then at each other.
...Weren’t you just below the stage? How did you teleport here?
"...Try again?" Gao Zhanyuan thought for a long time and could only come up with this idea.
"...Well, let's try again." Jing Qiao was worried.
They returned to the inner field, and the voice in their heads came out to cause trouble again.
[No, you can't come back here, you have to leave this theater! ]
[There is no fog outside the theater at all. You are deceived by the illusion! ]
Both of them had stern faces and ignored the voices in their heads. They re-entered the stage through the hole they had just kicked out and once again successfully found a brand new Demon Moon in the center of the stage.
Gao Zhanyuan took off the thing and said, "If the same situation happens again, there will definitely be a problem."
"Yes," Jing Qiao took a deep breath, "Pinch it."
Gao Zhanyuan crushed the monster generator in his hand.
*
“…”
“…”
In the darkness, Fu Xiaoju said angrily: "Jiang Shuyue, I know you are here, speak up!"
"……throat."
"I told you it was wrong to tell anyone! You didn't believe me! Now you believe me, don't you?"
"...Let's go out first." Jiang Shuyue said in an embarrassed tone.
The two returned to the theater through the hole, and Jiang Shuyue stroked his chin and fell into deep thought.
"I'll go outside and check again..." He turned and walked towards the corridor.
Fu Xiaoju almost vomited blood: "You still don't believe it..."
[There is fog outside the theater, you must not go out! ]
They both paused in unison.
A voice sounded in each of their minds.
[What you see outside now is fake, it is a trick of the dungeon. The stage is the way out. You must go back to the bottom of the stage and find the Devil's Moon! ]
Fu Xiaoju confirmed with Jiang Shuyue: "Did you hear it?"
Jiang Shuyue frowned and said, "I heard it."
It was at this moment that he realized a problem - he took out the library card from his trouser pocket and found the answer on it.
"Jing Qiao and Gao Zhanyuan came in," he covered his forehead, "now it's a game between the four of us."
Fu Xiaoju was also a little drunk: "So, now we are the ones carrying each other on our backs?!"
"It should be - no, I have to sit down and sort it out." Jiang Shuyue sat down on the spot.
Fu Xiaoju was really a little tired, both physically and mentally, so he sat down cross-legged.
Jiang Shuyue closed his eyes and thought for a moment, then said, "When we first came in, you were the front side and I was the back side."
Ten minutes ago, they were sucked into the book together.
Jiang Shuyue was in a daze at first. He couldn't feel his body and only knew that he was moving along with something.
He found himself in the Xinlian Theater. Outside the theater's gate was a normal campus night scene, but the power carrying him did not go out the door, but instead kept lingering inside the theater.
So Jiang Shuyue tried hard to speak up and told the other party, "The right way is outside the door, don't hang around in the theater, get out quickly."
In his confused state, he could vaguely hear the other party's rebuttal and cursing.
So, the other party is a human being and does not believe him.
Jiang Shuyue persisted in trying to persuade the other party... After an unknown amount of time, the other party's voice suddenly came clearly into his ears, giving him a startle.
"Jiang Shuyue, is that you?"
It turned out that the person carrying him was Fu Xiaoju.
Fu Xiaoju has been in a conscious state since he entered this book. He thought he was the only one in this book, and the weight he felt on his back was the "ghost behind him".
Of course he would not believe the nonsense told by the ghost behind him. He could see clearly with his own eyes that there was fog outside the door of the Xinlian Theater. How could he possibly get out!
But after arguing with the spirit behind him for a long time, he developed a sense of familiarity.
The other party's nagging way of chatting reminded him of the nagging exam king among them - Jiang Shuyue.
…
I don’t know if calling out the other person’s name is a key step. Anyway, after that, Jiang Shuyue’s consciousness became a little clearer——
But I was a little bit sober.
He could communicate normally with Fu Xiaoju, but would often start talking nonsense after just a sentence or two.
Anyway, after some difficult discussions, they came to the following conclusions:
The scene he and Fu Xiaoju saw was different.
In Fu Xiaoju's eyes, there was a fog outside the Xinlian Theater.
In Jiang Shuyue's eyes, the area outside the Xinlian Theater is a normal campus.
Which one is true and which one is false?
Jiang Shuyue firmly believed that what he saw was true.
Because, if the truth is as Fu Xiaoju saw, then can they complete the book by copying the answer to the first copy and finding the Devil's Moon under the stage?
That's impossible. It has come to this stage. How could they suddenly be given an open-book test?
In this case, if they follow the experience of the first copy and look under the stage, it might be a dead end, right?
Fu Xiaoju thought it made some sense at the time. He hadn't remembered that Xinlian Theater was the location of their first copy, so he didn't think of this.
Later, at the urging of Jiang Shuyue, he went to the gate and pushed it open with a final hint of doubt.
What happened afterwards is already known.
…
Jiang Shuyue suddenly opened his eyes and sorted out the clues.
"So, now we are each other's ghosts, and what they see is different from what we see. We are now in a sober state, and what we see outside is normal, while they are in a ghost state, and what they see outside is foggy."
After saying this, he tried to call out the voice in his head: "Jing Qiao? Gao Zhanyuan? Is that you?"
After a moment of silence, the voice in his mind sounded again, with a hint of confusion.
[…Jiang Shuyue? ]
Jiang Shuyue became excited and gave Fu Xiaoju a look: "It's me, are you Jingqiao or Gaozhanyuan?"
[…I’m Jing Qiao, what on earth is going on…]
Jing Qiao's voice still sounded a little dazed.
Jiang Shuyue did not choose to explain such a complicated thing to her under such circumstances, but asked: "What did you just do?"
[We...we found the Devil's Moon...and crushed it...]
"What did she say?" Fu Xiaoju came over.
"She and Gao Zhanyuan found the Devil Moon under the stage and crushed it, which means they once controlled their own bodies and were conscious!"
Jiang Shuyue's brain is working fast.
"Our two groups should be switching states with each other. We take turns staying awake!"
"When they are awake, we are confused. When we are awake, they are confused. Moreover, both of us will forget what happened when we were confused after we wake up. The game in this book has been upgraded since the two of them came in!"
"The two of them went to look for the Devil Moon under the stage, which means that the fog outside the theater they saw when they were awake was also foggy - I suspect there are two versions of the world in this book!"
Fu Xiaoju was already dizzy from what he had heard. Jiang Shuyue gave him a clear and logical analysis:
“Version 1: Players who are awake see fog, and players who are confused see normal night scenes.”
“Version 2: Players who are awake see a normal night scene, and players who are in a confused state see fog.”
"When there were only two of us in this book just now, we were always in version 1."
"After Jing Qiao and Gao Zhanyuan came in, they were also in version 1. Later, they found the Devil's Moon and destroyed it. Our two groups swapped positions, and we became sober players. The situation in the dungeon changed to version 2."
Fu Xiaoju understood a little bit.
"Then is opening the theater door also the trigger for our two groups to switch?"
After all, the first and second times their group switched to Jing Qiao and Gao Zhanyuan seemed to be after the theater door was opened.
Jiang Shuyue thought for a while and said, "I doubt it. I just doubt it. In each version, there is only one option that can switch the status of the two groups. The other option is a dead end."
"For example, if their group destroyed the Demon Moon in version 1 and was able to switch to our group, then if they pushed open the theater door at that time, they would probably be dead."
Fu Xiaoju immediately wanted to refute.
Before Jing Qiao and Gao Zhanyuan came in, he and Jiang Shuyue had been in version 1. Didn't he wake up and find himself teleported to the bottom of the stage after pushing open the door?
Jiang Shuyue asked first: "Have you ever thought that it was at that time that the two of them came in?"
Fu Xiaoju was stunned.
"They came in at that time, so they interrupted the two of us. Otherwise, we might have died at that time," Jiang Shuyue said, blushing, "That wave was my fault."
Fu Xiaoju was also brainwashed by him at the time and thought that taking the first step was the right way.
Fu Xiaoju thought about it and understood a little.
They were courting their own death when Gao Zhanyuan and Jing Qiao came in and interrupted them, converting both of them into the back spirit state.
Later, Gao Zhanyuan and Jing Qiao found the Devil's Moon and destroyed it, leaving the sober position to the two of them. They entered version 2 and pushed open the theater door again. This time, the road finally did not lead to a dead end, but a switch position.
On the other hand, if they went back to the stage again at this moment... that would be a dead end?
Fu Xiaoju shuddered.
Fortunately, they didn't commit suicide.
But here comes the problem——
"So what is the way out? No matter whether it is version 1 or version 2, the two choices are either death or switching. Is there no ending for completing the copy in this book?" Fu Xiaoju was puzzled.
Jiang Shuyue shook his head: "For this instance, the book must be the key. The answer to clearing the instance must also be in the book."
"We came in after Jing Qiao and Gao Zhanyuan. I don't know if they have any new discoveries outside. Why don't we switch their status and make them sober to see if they can think of anything."
Just do it.
Jiang Shuyue and Fu Xiaoju woke up Jing Qiao and Gao Zhanyuan, and despite their dizziness, they tried their best to transmit the information to them.
Only after making sure that even if they didn't understand, they at least remembered the key words, did I run to the corridor and push open the theater door.
*
Jing Qiao and Gao Zhanyuan woke up dazed in the corridor.
Their minds seemed to still be echoing with the Spartan indoctrination of Fu Xiaoju and Jiang Shuyue...
[Neither the answer outside the gate nor the answer under the stage is the correct answer. It is not the correct answer. It is not the correct answer...]
[The two versions will switch between each other, switch between each other, switch between each other...]
Gao Zhanyuan slapped his head hard and suddenly became a little more sober.
He and Jing Qiao looked at each other——
This is the mechanism in this book!
The ghost behind is not a real ghost, but a friend!
"Did you understand what they said just now?" Gao Zhanyuan asked Jing Qiao.
"I roughly understand it now," Jing Qiao pondered, "Whether leaving here or finding the Devil's Moon under the stage, it's probably not the way to pass this book."
But apart from these two options, what else is there in this copy?
There were no NPCs or monsters. They were faced with an empty theater and had no idea what to do in it.
Gao Zhanyuan also frowned and pondered for a while, and suddenly said: "I think we should start with you."
"ah?"
"This is your book, right? Why is this book called "The Ghost Behind the Scenes" and why is it in the New Lotus Theater? It should all be related to you," Gao Zhanyuan looked at her. "Although the book itself was created by the copy, He must have scanned something from your brain or heart."
"Why don't you think about it carefully, is there anything you want? Or is there any unfulfilled wish?" Gao Zhanyuan racked his brains, "Or are you afraid of something? After all, the name of "The Ghost Behind" sounds like a horror movie..."
His expression kept changing as his thoughts worked.
She suddenly fell down.
"What's wrong?" Gao Zhanyuan asked sharply.
Jing Qiao whispered, "There is indeed something that has been bothering me about this copy of the Xinlian Theater."
"We were divided into three groups, responsible for the rehearsal area, the aisle area and the props area. When I first entered, I went to the rehearsal area with a new boy... That boy died, and I was bewitched by the monster, and my memory was also tampered with, but I had no idea."
"The second time I went in, I was in a group with Jiang Shuyue... I, I really didn't realize that there was something wrong with my memory, and I kept giving Jiang Shuyue the wrong hints. If Jiang Shuyue hadn't been smart enough, I would have killed him."
Jing Qiao's cheeks flushed with shame.
"Although no one has said anything to me about this, I have always felt that I was so stupid... In fact, there were many contradictions, but I didn't realize it at the time, which really held me back..."
Gao Zhanyuan heard this and said, "How can this be called holding back? No matter who encounters that kind of situation, they will be in trouble, right? If anyone criticizes you for this matter, it's easy to talk without any pain in the back!"
Jing Qiao smiled bitterly: "Thank you... Anyway, I have always been scared. Didn't everyone volunteer to participate in the copy during the evening self-study class? I hesitated for a long time at that time. I wanted to contribute, but I was afraid of repeating the same mistake..."
But Su Mingyun told her: What are you afraid of? The most frightening thing is not that you will fall into the dungeon's trap again, but that you don't dare to face the dungeon at all! The most terrifying thing is that the dungeon will never stop appearing, and we will never be able to get rid of it in our lifetime!
It was this sentence that made Jing Qiao put aside all his worries.
That’s right, what she should be afraid of is not herself, but the future that is being interfered with and disrupted by unknown existence.
She mustered up her courage and re-entered the copy, but she had to ask herself, had the sprout of fear in her heart been completely eradicated?
When she discovered that the world in this book was actually the Xinlian Theater, did her thoughts really not immediately fly to the rehearsal area that carried her fear?
——Just now, when she and Gao Zhanyuan stepped in there, she didn't even dare to go in more than five meters.
My heart is filled with rejection.
"So," Gao Zhanyuan understood, "the ghost behind you is the self that you don't even trust."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
