Chapter 81: The Colorful City 10 The taste is so good...
"But..." One of the players raised his wrist casually, revealing the black snake tattoo on his wrist.
"I see," Papa smiled, with an elegant curve at the corner of his mouth, "So you two are both believers."
The two players immediately smiled as if to show their good sense.
"But the Lord God should have warned you that the Lord God will not bless believers who deliberately break the rules. If you break the Lord God's rules, you are not a believer."
“—A traitor.”
After saying that, the two followers behind Papa stepped forward and forced two sharp carving knives into the two men's hands. The two men picked up the carving knives uncontrollably and cut each other's faces amidst their shrill cries.
"You are not good students, but that doesn't matter. Fortunately, your Papa is a responsible and good teacher. I will help you make up for the one hour of class you skipped." Papa sat in the chair with his legs crossed, and said gently and politely.
In front of him stood two people, both of them wailing until their voices were hoarse. The sharp carving knife fell on each other's faces, immediately tearing their skin and flesh apart. Blood gushed out in large drops. Soon, their faces were unrecognizable and turned into a pool of bright red mud. The blood stained their clothes and then dripped onto the ground.
"I hope that in the next hour, you can study hard and make up for the missing content of the sculpture course. If I remember correctly, this class should be about sculpting facial features and muscles. Study hard." Papa got up and left. The moment the door was closed, countless black snakes emerged from every corner of the room and surrounded the two of them.
The hair of the two began to turn white in the intense pain and fear...
*
After An Rao finished his class and returned to his room, he found a new schedule on his desk. It seemed that the schedule was updated every day. What was different from today's schedule was that Papa would host a blessing ceremony tomorrow, and all players had to participate. There would be no puppets in tomorrow's event.
Anyway, it’s a good opportunity. I can finally explore the world outside the castle!
An Rao, who was a light sleeper, was awakened by a rustling sound in the middle of the night, as if something was crawling over the outer wall of the castle. The cold and strange sound reminded An Rao of the sound of a giant ivy sweeping across bricks and tiles with its tail. The thing was very sensitive and seemed to sense An Rao's movements. The sound disappeared without a trace in an instant, and An Rao was also attacked by sudden drowsiness and fell into a deep sleep almost instantly.
The weather was still very good the next day. The pure blue sky was cloudless and the sun was blazing and transparent, making the color saturation of the entire colorful city appear exceptionally high.
An Rao was stunned when he got out of bed. His feet were no longer human feet. The first night they were arms, and the second night he had a pair of feet. Thinking of Shi Yirou's hands and Su Ming's legs, the process of humanization seemed to be divided according to human limbs, just like a BJD doll, the whole body was divided into head, torso, limbs, hands and feet. If this was true, then the entire humanization world would only last six days, and now two days had passed.
What about Kashiwa? His clothes are so tight, how can he be a puppet? If he is a puppet, can a fragile puppet bear the heavy armor?
Walking into the hall, two players who had arrived early were whispering to each other in front of the hourglass in the hall. An Rao looked in the direction they pointed. The fifth crystal tube from the left was already filled with pure red sand without a trace of mixed colors. It stood out among the other crystal tubes that were mainly green sand. The fifth one, if the order of the crystal tubes corresponded to the student numbers of the players, An Rao had a very bad association.
Not only the fifth one, but also the two crystal hourglasses next to each other were filled with green sand. It seemed that a lot of things happened last night, but what would happen to Shi Ge? He looked so calm. An Rao stared at the dazzling red crystal hourglass, and why was his color so different from others? This was the first time that red sand appeared in the crystal tube.
Shi Yirou appeared in the hall. When she saw the pure red crystal hourglass, she immediately opened her eyes wide and covered her mouth. She ran towards An Rao in disbelief: "Doctor Lin, Shi Ge?!"
"I guess something happened." An Rao's voice was heavy. Although they didn't get along very well in the beginning in the haunted house, they were teammates who had experienced so many things together after all, and no one wanted to receive bad news about their teammates.
"But," Shi Yirou's eyes quickly filled with tears, "But how is it possible? He looks so calm and steady."
"It proves that we have not yet touched the core of this game project. What exactly is it relying on to kill people and what its core is."
An Rao turned around and looked at the crystal hourglasses. The crystal and gold sparkled with a charming and luxurious light in the morning light, giving people the illusion of being in a prosperous and decadent world. Fourteen huge hourglasses were lined up in a row, and the high and low colored sand grains formed a movement, becoming the most gorgeous decoration in the entire castle hall. Unfortunately, this movement was not some beautiful music, but a funeral song that frightened the players.
"Wow! Now there are six hourglasses filled with sand!" Su Ming, this kid, suddenly appeared out of nowhere and exclaimed while standing behind An Rao.
"That means six people have died." An Rao's voice was trembling. This was the amusement ride with the fastest death rate he had ever encountered, and people hadn't even figured out the real rules of death, let alone avoiding them.
But after just two days, only eight of the fourteen players were left. It was too fast!
"Why are the sand in Brother Shi's hourglass different from others? The other five players' hourglasses are either pure green or mainly green with some other colors mixed in. What does the pure red sand mean?" Su Ming was a little puzzled.
Yes, what do these colors mean? And what do they have to do with the hair of the citizens of the Colorful City? For this most important question, no one has any clue.
Baichuan was the last one to arrive, and because their student numbers were too far apart, An Rao seldom had the opportunity to talk to him in the Holy Light Castle. An Rao watched in silence as Baichuan, dressed in silver armor, walked past him safely, and his heart felt a little more at ease.
"Love cannot be hidden. You can't deceive yourself." Papa's meaningful words suddenly flashed like a ghost.
The handsome young man frowned, thinking that this man was still looking for him everywhere to solve the mystery of his amnesia. It was not logical for him to have any involvement with Baichuan.
"Everyone is here, we can set off. Papa is already at the Cathedral of Holy Light." This time, it was someone wearing the same funny rainbow-colored priest robe, standing at the door of the Cathedral of Holy Light, urging everyone.
"But, there are only eight of us here!" a player exclaimed, "There are still several people who haven't arrived yet!"
"There are only eight of you." The man, who didn't know what day it was, said calmly.
"But--"
"Stop talking, eight people are eight people, let's go." The man named Li Ke interrupted impatiently, "You've already reached the fourth instance, don't you know what the NPC means by that?"
The player didn't say anything else. It's not that he didn't know, he just couldn't believe that the game killed people so quickly. However, if he continued to act stupidly like this, even if the boss didn't target him, other players would find a way to use him as a weapon.
Everyone followed Father Rainbow out of the Holy Light Castle and walked towards the cathedral across the lawn. The streets surrounding the lawn were still bustling with people walking their dogs leisurely, talking on the phone while rushing on their way, and lying on benches basking in the sun. Apart from the colorful clouds above everyone's head, this place was no different from a bustling metropolis in the real world.
When pedestrians saw the priest, they all stopped and saluted solemnly. An Rao, who was following behind him, actually felt a sense of honor. I don't know if it was because of the bright colors of this city, but An Rao felt that he had become a different person since entering the colorful city. He became very easily moved, completely unlike the stagnant pool in the real world. I don't know if it was because he was moved by someone he shouldn't have been moved by.
The priest bowed gracefully to every citizen who saluted. In front of them was a majestic cathedral. In fact, they had noticed this cathedral when they first entered the Colorful City. Like the Holy Light Castle, it was a huge black Gothic building. There were many religious story reliefs carved on the outside of the cathedral, which generally praised the great Papa for saving the city from danger.
The interior of the Black Church is very similar to churches in the real world. There are two rows of benches in the rectangular hall, and in the middle is an aisle leading to the top of the church. At the front of the church stands a huge black cross. The black snake wrapped around the cross is lifelike. It does not open its mouth, but its tongue is sticking out, as if it is sniffing and testing its believers.
The benches in front of the church were already filled with believers. A couple in gorgeous colorful dresses stood out in the crowd. It seemed that they were the protagonists of this blessing ceremony. They knelt on the altar, with their hands crossed on their chests and their heads lowered, devoutly listening to the Holy Father's teachings.
Under the guidance of the young priest, the eight people sat in the back row of the church and watched the blessing ceremony quietly.
The back seats were too far from the altar, so An Rao couldn't hear the conversation between Papa and the couple. He could only tell that the blessing ceremony was for the fetus in the expectant mother's belly. Papa put his hand on the expectant mother's bulging belly and paused for a moment, then said something. Everyone's expressions began to become serious. The expectant mother, who was dressed gorgeously, immediately covered her face and cried. Although her husband put his arm around his wife's shoulders to comfort her, he also frowned. It seemed that the two of them had encountered some huge problems.
Suddenly, the couple knelt down and walked a few steps to Papa's feet, holding Papa's hand tightly, as if praying for something. After Papa bowed and said a few words to the couple, the couple slowly got up from the ground. The beautiful expectant mother held Papa's hand again, as if asking for some confirmation, and then after getting Papa's nod of affirmation, the expectant mother let go of her hand, stood aside, leaned in her husband's arms, bowed her head and sobbed softly.
What problems did they encounter? How did Papa solve them? Does this have anything to do with them? I don’t know why, maybe because the atmosphere was too sad, An Rao even felt that the whole church had turned blue, very blue.
"Blue." An Rao uttered two words softly.
"Their blue hair has become even bluer." Li Ke beside him immediately whispered, "When I was a child, I watched a cartoon in which different emotions in the brain were represented by different colors."
An Rao looked at Li Ke in surprise. If this was true, how could he tell the key clues to others so easily.
"I'm just guessing," Li Ke smiled at An Rao, "but I have no idea how to get out."
As soon as the blessing ceremony ended, there was a bunch of messy footsteps at the back of the church. A group of people suddenly rushed in from the open door of the church. Leading the way was a young man who was running towards the altar with a baby in his arms. When An Rao turned around and looked in the direction of the sound, he happened to see the baby's rainbow hair fluttering as the man ran. The man quickly ran to Papa, "plopped" on his knees, held the baby up and prayed to Papa for something.
Is there another one coming to bless?
But this was different. Shi Yirou, who was the first to discover the abnormality, immediately began to get restless. She motioned An Rao to look at the baby's hair, and then pointed at the moss green vest on An Rao.
An Rao looked at the young man under the altar, only to see him kneeling on the ground and carefully handing the baby in his hands to Papa. There was a strand of white in the bright and soft colored hair that shouldn't have existed. Based on the distribution of colors and timely and gentle hints, the color missing from that clump of white hair was exactly green.
Are there people in the Colorful City who lack a certain color in their hair? An Rao was a little surprised. After all, when they first entered the city, they had seen people with strange hair colors. Although they were dull, they had all the seven colors. But they had never seen a person whose hair lacked a certain color.
But what happens if there is a lack of color? Are there any bad consequences?
Papa touched the baby's head lovingly, then kissed his index and middle fingers and put them on the baby's forehead to bless the baby. Finally, he gave some instructions to the young man.
The distance was too far to hear the content of the conversation, but thanks to the angle at which the young man was kneeling, An Rao could clearly see the changing shape of Papa’s lips, and he read the words “scared” and “wait patiently” from the changes in Papa’s lips.
Is it to tell the young father not to be afraid? Or is it to tell the baby not to be afraid? Or is it something else to be afraid of?
Or... An Rao thought about what Li Ke had said just now. Was the missing green hair related to fear? Green hair represented fear?
In the hall of the Holy Light Castle, the vast majority of the sand in the fourteen hourglasses was green, the lingering fear among the players, and everyone's colorful hair, all seemed to confirm Li Ke's guess, but he could not reach a conclusion because of the lack of a link.
If green hair represents fear, then what about blue? And red? And what about the sporadic orange in the hourglass? Even if hair color represents emotions, what does it have to do with players like them? Or, in other words, what does it have to do with learning to make dolls?
Even if hair color is related to emotions, what does it have to do with the apprentice rule of killing people? In other words, if the player strictly abides by the apprentice rule, how can such a clear information that hair color is related to people's emotions work? Is it related to the exit and the stamp?
At least one thing An Rao felt certain of: there was no way to find a way out or a stamp by abiding by the apprentice rules, and becoming number one was even more ridiculous. There was no fixed number on when one would become number one, what level of learning one had to reach to become number one, or even when the ranking assessment would begin. The right of interpretation was all in Papa's hands. So would this game ever end?
An Rao frowned and looked at Bai Chuan who was sitting at the other end of the bench, only to find that he was watching what was happening under the altar calmly, as if all this was so commonplace that it was just like daily life. Only his hands, only the fingers that had been tapping on the back of the chair intentionally or unintentionally, were constantly conveying messages to An Rao: Stay calm, stay calm.
But they have been here for two days, and based on the number of full hourglasses, it can be determined that at least six players have died.
And where do all the dead players go? Where are their bodies?
Let's not talk about the other strangers. What happened to Shige? Did he not study hard? Did he not cherish the decorations in the castle? Did he disobey Papa? The rules set by Papa are too subjective and cannot be applied at all.
At the dinner, Papa once again served food to Anrao, and successfully aroused the jealousy of several other players. Anrao didn't know why Papa had to stir up hostility and targeting among the players, but looking at Papa who was taking a deep breath in ecstasy, at least Papa enjoyed this state very much. But what benefits would this hostility bring to him? The pleasure of watching everyone kill each other and dominating the fate of others?
During the meal, Baichuan kept making the "1" gesture, forcing Anrao to remain calm.
"Doctor Lin, I discovered a strange phenomenon before, but I was not sure about it, and I was afraid of interfering with everyone's search for the exit and the direction of the seal. Now I think I can be sure of it." After dinner, in the precious little time before class, Shi Yirou grabbed An Rao at the door of the restaurant and said.
"What phenomenon?"
"The expressions and body movements of the remaining players are becoming more and more like the puppets in the castle." Shi Yirou looked unhappy, but Shi Yirou was still Shi Yirou. An Rao didn't know if it was affected by what Shi Yirou said just now, but he felt that Shi Yirou's movements and expressions were a little stuck, as if it was a movie that was not playing smoothly, and a bit like The Lego Movie.
"This dog, neither man nor woman, is so flattering!" Shao Yun, who was wearing a blue cheongsam, was jealous and resentful. When she passed by An Rao, she deliberately bumped into his arm and then spat in an exaggerated and disgusting manner.
"It's okay, it's all thanks to the support of some colleagues. It's better than someone wanting to flatter but not having the chance." An Rao looked humble, as if he was really praised.
"You!" Shao Yun was so angry that her chest, which was tightly wrapped in the blue cheongsam, rose and fell violently. "Who wants to flatter? Who is like you? You are a little white flower on the surface, but who knows what kind of rotten thing you are in private!"
"Who are you talking about? Huh? Every day!" Su Ming was so angry that he jumped up and down, stomping his clogs on the ground, and he was about to rush towards the woman in the blue cheongsam.
"Su Ming, calm down." An Rao held down Su Ming who was about to rush forward, signaling him that he was fine, then turned around and smiled at Shao Yun who had a resentful look on his face.
"Oh? If you don't want to flatter, then why are you angry? Do you want to taste the steak cut by Papa himself?" An Rao suddenly came closer with a smile and whispered in her ear, "Then I have to tell you, the taste is very good~"
"You! Shameless!"
"Hey, hey, please don't be angry anymore. Being angry is bad for your health. Look at your hair, most of it is white." An Rao looked at Shao Yun's hair, which was a mixture of black and white, with some sympathy.
The change in hair was Shao Yun's sore spot, and now An Rao had stepped on it. He also saw that the player named Bai Chuan, whom he had always liked, took An Rao away directly. He was so angry that he pointed at An Rao's back and cursed.
"Can you be quiet for a while?" Li Ke adjusted his glasses and glanced at the blue cheongsam. "Don't you think something is wrong? Have you ever wondered why your hair is turning white so quickly?"
"I..." Shao Yun choked up, then turned his head away, "I didn't break any rules. I studied hard and listened to Papa. What's wrong with me scolding that perverted woman? Scolding him doesn't violate the rules!"
"Girl, I advise you to be kind to others and keep a calm mind." Li Ke was unable to persuade her and clasped his fists towards her. "By the way, in the real world, are you also so easily irritated in Happy Plaza or other games?"
"What do you mean by getting angry? F*ck! I get mad just by looking at him. I @#%@...%#&!"
"Oh...bye, bye." Li Ke rubbed his badly damaged ears, stared at Shao Yun's mouth which was opening and closing more and more slowly, clasped his fists and said goodbye, then walked away without looking back.
Before An Rao pushed open the door of the meditation room, he thought of what Bai Chuan had told him: "Try not to have any emotional fluctuations. If green is associated with fear, then other colors should also be associated with other emotions. Emotions should be the story line of the Colorful City and the key to escape."
So is every meditation class just Papa trying every possible means to get some emotion from me?
The boring sculpture class is constantly suppressing the players, and after the sculpture is meditation, which is to allow players to release their suppressed emotions in the meditation class. Why do they need to magnify the emotions? There is only one possibility, that is, Papa or the Colorful City has some plan for the emotions. Then what kind of emotion did Brother Shi die of?
In other words, how does Papa select the player's emotions?
The door was pushed open, and Miss Wen Ranran, the superstar in the real world, appeared in front of him with a smile on her face.
"You're back!" Wen Ranran was wearing a simple white cotton dress, looking gentle and amiable. She winked at An Rao mischievously, "I've been waiting for you at home for a long time!"
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