Chapter 168 The Bridge of Broken Souls: "A tribute to all those who bring twilight."...
The tavern floated on the broken belt, bustling with activity. People drank, played drinking games, and cheered so loudly that butterflies fluttered their wings on the rooftops.
Several morpho butterflies unfurled a banner that read, "Warmly celebrate Xue Shen's ascent to the summit!"
The host rankings have been updated, and Xue Chao has secured first place, a well-deserved victory.
But the main character of the celebration party was nowhere to be seen. He was hiding in the locked back room, lying on his back on the sofa, his shirt disheveled, his arm covering his eyes, and breathing heavily with suppressed urges.
"Ugh!" Xue Chao pushed his head away with his other hand, his hand tangled in long hair, his voice terribly hoarse, "That's enough... um..."
"Thank you for the treat." The young man slowly stood up, his long black hair flowing down. He licked his lips, reluctant to back away, and leaned on top of Xue Chao, coaxing Xue Chao to remove his hands that were in the way. He admired the young man's still confused expression. "Anyway, the person you're waiting for hasn't arrived yet, let's do it again?"
Blue Eyes slowly regained her senses, glared at Jiang Ming, and said, "Weren't you having a headache?"
The evil god reacted again to the glare, immediately collapsing into Xue Chao's chest and feigning pitifulness: "Yeah, yeah, it's so painful, I need a kiss—"
Xue Chao ruthlessly kicked the person off the sofa.
They've been living a crazy life for two days and two nights since they left the instance, the thrill of life and death and the resonance of their hearts pushing their desire for each other to the peak.
They knew in their hearts that this was Xue Chao's last life, and the evil god's transformation was continuing, with little time left, so it had a kind of pre-apocalyptic revelry feel to it.
"I was clearly comfortable and really liked it, you stingy little thing!" Jiang Ming threw a tantrum on the ground. "You're already tired of me after only two days? All that talk about loving me is a lie. Yeah, I wanted to kill you so many times before, how could you possibly..."
"Do you want to kill me, or did I ask you to kill me?"
Jiang Ming fell silent, turned his head to look at Xue Chao straightening his clothes, and said softly, "You remember your past life?"
"No."
This life cannot be considered a reincarnation; it's more like a loophole-exploited resurrection. Therefore, I am still the host, and the library has not included the host's memories.
But it's not hard to guess that in his previous life, when he first became a host, he most likely became a lackey of the company, and was hunted down by the company after realizing the truth.
If he finds the library and regains his memories, he is about to die before Jiang Ming. He is unsure if there will be a next life, and if there is, will he repeat the same mistakes and become an accomplice in the cracks? Therefore, he will most likely leave a will just in case.
For example, "If I become an obstacle in our path, show no mercy, kill me, please."
They are lovers, but also allies who share the same crazy ideal.
Jiang Ming's eyelashes trembled, and he changed the subject: "It's not necessarily that it's not included. It's not in the library, it's in the place where you're about to be exiled."
Now that things have come to this, the patience of those in the cracks has run out, and they will surely send this generation to their deaths as soon as possible.
And every ending inevitably causes turmoil in a certain place.
Xue Chao paused: "Eternal Prison."
Jiang Ming: "The host will definitely be the first to be targeted, like the stars above the infinite world."
"I've already been notified that the next dungeon is a penalty dungeon. Tsk, I've already completed the mission, so I'm not going to pretend anymore."
"They're desperate, that's why they're doing it."
Xue Chao buttoned up his shirt, walked up to Jiang Ming, and unceremoniously grabbed the man's upper body, exchanging a deep kiss: "Alright, we have serious business to attend to. I'm not going to my death, do I need to do this once?"
Jiang Ming was stunned by the "future" in Xue Chao's subtext. Only after Xue Chao closed the door and left did he burst into maniacal laughter, which choked him and brought tears to his eyes.
Han Zheng and Lü Lianshan were sitting at the bar, rare guests. Xue Chao raised an eyebrow, rolled up his sleeves as he walked, and raised his glass to the people who came to offer their congratulations.
The Crevice Consciousness wanted to use the starry sky of the maze instance to further drive Jiang Ming mad. Before this, Han Zheng had tested Jiang Ming to find out the cause of Bai Lu's death, which unexpectedly stimulated him. So Han Zheng came to check on the state of the Evil God.
Lü Lianshan has always been interested in the evil god, and he is also a defeated opponent of the evil god. Xue Chao asked Tao Yuanyuan to use Xu Feiying as the first move to disrupt the players, just to prevent them from clashing with each other.
But Xue Chao couldn't pay attention to them, because Xu Feiying entered at that moment, and the person he was waiting for had arrived.
Xu Feiying looked terrible: "Old He has been locked up."
Xue Chao wasn't misled: "You locked it?"
Xu Feiying remained silent with a gloomy face, and Xue Chao understood: "He locked himself up."
He Yang realized that there was something inside his body.
"He used several S-class items and even his own special ability. Even the imperial mausoleum wasn't that difficult to escape from." Xu Feiying finished mocking him and looked directly at Xue Chao. "What exactly happened?"
The other two also looked over.
Xue Chao countered, "He didn't say anything?"
"..." Xu Feiying was about to get angry, but then suddenly remembered something strange. "He didn't ask me to pass on a message, but he said he was quite envious of you. You have a guild under your command, but you're a hands-off manager and can take several days off every time."
Huang Haitao also called to report to Xue Chao that the chronically ill chairman had been brought under control.
Xue Chao hummed in agreement: "I need manpower for something. Pick a durable one."
Huang Haitao paused. The new boss had said he didn't need them, and he'd seen plenty of changes of heart, so it wasn't surprising. But Huang Haitao felt that this time things might be different from what he expected.
In terms of durability, it's definitely a new weapon that hasn't been forcibly used with supernatural abilities. Have there been any strange newcomers lately?
"I'll take care of it right away."
Xue Chao hung up the phone. He understood the message He Yang was conveying: do not return to the real world; the person he wanted was in the intractable disease.
"I know you have a lot of questions, but I have orders to keep. You've all received the notice, right? Players will have two days off this week. The host has a group mission, and I'm still doing the punishment dungeon, so I don't have time to go into details." Xue Chao paused. "It won't be long, you'll understand soon enough."
Huang Haitao quickly found his target.
Unlike other guilds, Wanji has very few players who actively apply to join. They are all people who have no other choice or have been recruited by Holder.
But the new player didn't. He had just gone through his first dungeon and was lucky enough to be rescued by Ruoshui's ace. On his way to get on Ruoshui's good side, he met Fang Tailai, who had been recruited by Ruoshui. Fang Tailai introduced him to Wanji.
Ruoshui, that walking arsenal, isn't exactly the kind of person who's happy to help others. And since Fang Tailai is acquainted with Xue Chao, this person is probably related to Xue Chao.
After a few words, he realized that this person was just as cunning as him, but more serious, and probably a former policeman.
The two men subtly probed each other's secrets, outwardly addressing each other as brothers, but in reality, they were secretly vying for supremacy.
But Huang Haitao didn't expect that when the new member entered the back room of the bar and saw Xue Chao, his expression was shocked and changed several times, as if he were performing a series of memes. Finally, as if he had met an old friend in a foreign land, he rushed forward, but stopped abruptly under Xue Chao's gaze.
Huang Haitao: ...Such complex psychological activities.
The new member is slightly wary: "Are you actually the head of a behind-the-scenes fraud ring similar to those in Hollywood?"
Xue Chao was too lazy to waste words: "Stop deceiving yourself. You should know why I asked you to investigate those things."
The private investigator swallowed hard: "So all of this is real?"
"You should have slapped yourself a few times to see if this was a dream. What were you doing before you entered the game?"
"You haven't contacted me at all, and you won't even let me get some sleep?"
Although the situation changed suddenly, fortunately Xue Chao had some connections, and he received help from his companions again.
They all knew that it was no accident that the detective had suddenly become a player. The detective said seriously, "The Crossing Society is gone, and the leaders have run away. According to our investigation, this has happened many times and it has spread all over the world. They pretend to be churches, mutual aid societies, charities or other organizations, gather people together for a few activities and then disappear. They are not for missionary work or money. They do participate in political activities or online programs to expand their reputation, but they also quickly disappear without a trace. We have no idea what they are doing."
“The probability of participants getting into trouble afterward is very high, but it's not reflected in the total number because…”
Xue Chao recalled the official internal data He Yang had given him: "The frequency of accidents is increasing irrationally year by year."
“A surge.” The detective corrected, “Natural disasters, man-made calamities, social instability… there’s always a logical reason behind the turmoil, but this year it’s gone too far, like the end of the world is already at our doorstep.”
Huang Haitao's eyebrows twitched. In the later stages of the maze, his sanity plummeted, and a frenzied desire for destruction filled his heart. It was as if his soul was heading towards the end of the world, and it still haunted him.
The detective continued to report that he had not found a campus serial murder case that perfectly matched the elements Xue Chao had mentioned, but when those elements were broken down, there were cases that matched.
"Regardless of the form, whether overt or covert, the condition for joining the organization is old belongings." Xue Chao slowly uttered two words, "relics."
Players return relics upon death, which is a clear proof of death. The Egret and the former number one host did not appear, yet almost no one suspected they were dead, simply because they were still on the leaderboard and had no relics.
People with a sense of urgency are unlikely to be kind enough to leave souvenirs for players' friends and family.
Players with full points are selected as high-quality materials and potential bosses, and will eventually stay in the infinite world. So how can we make use of all those ordinary materials?
Being assimilated into a copy allows you to become an NPC, but what happens when you die?
The sense of being caught in the cracks wants to perfect its own world, but is that all?
How could I be content to remain stuck in the gap between two worlds? Strengthening myself and then polluting both worlds in return is the best course of action!
Relics are the core of the players, the place where alienation is most severe. Their disappearance in the infinite world is actually a further return to the real world, releasing pollution sources, attracting more players, and polluting the main world! The same applies to the dark world.
In the Ghost Mother's revenge case, Fang Hui became a player shortly before her death. She lost the game and her death in the real world was due to being beaten by her husband, Zhou Xiong. If it weren't for the game, she should have been able to escape.
Her body, along with one of her belongings, was hidden in the house and became a source of contamination.
The power of the relics spread outwards from the crevices, and her alcoholic husband was the first to be affected.
The daughter hid in the bedroom. Zhou Xiong smashed open the door, but entered an infinite world and became a new player. He lost the game and died suddenly in the real world.
Besides touching the relics, people with sensitive minds are more likely to be drawn into another world, such as the old man upstairs, and Fang Hui and Zhou Xiong's daughter are both.
At that moment, she was on the border between the main world and the crack, and she heard the sound of her father being dragged away and stabbed to death, which was Zhou Xiong's way of dying in the game world.
Later, she was also drawn into the game and cleverly learned that the relics could influence those around her.
She may have known that the final victory was fake, or that her mind was finally broken by the game and she was unable to go on living.
It's also possible that she offended someone in the infinite world, or that she'll be the next to be punished and know she won't survive.
So she set herself on fire in her home, burning everything, not wanting to involve any more people.
The "Gap Consciousness" imposes restrictions on players who return to the real world, but these restrictions are not strict. Their game is based on real names, and the orchestra initially invited Mingyang because they knew he was a famous pianist.
The purpose of the "gap consciousness" is to allow them to spend their rare holidays in the real world around the infinite world, involving more people; they are also a source of pollution.
No one will fail to uncover the truth, but once entangled in matters of another world, one can only slide deeper into the abyss of despair.
Once you're involved in the game, you can't manage both worlds. And in the game, fighting to the death, the two disgusting outcomes are both becoming a pollutant, attracting more people, and getting stuck in a vicious cycle.
The consciousness in the cracks isn't afraid of them investigating the truth; in fact, it's happy for them to investigate, because in the end, everything will belong to it.
"Young Master He also has some important data. Before players are first pulled into the game, they all have one thing in common: they are sleeping."
"Sleep?" Xue Chao frowned. Before he was chosen, he did fall asleep while listening to the recording. Perhaps influenced by the audio content, he even dreamed of the sea... Dream?
He suddenly exclaimed, "Is it a dream?"
The detective nodded: "Comparing the timelines of the two worlds, the most active period for viewers is often during the nighttime in the real world."
Therefore, the audience consists of people who have not yet become players in the game.
Dreams are the spiritual world. In dreams, their consciousness is drawn to an infinite world, making them difficult for the dark world to detect, especially for those who have come into contact with relics or are spiritually sensitive.
The girl in the Ghost Mother revenge case was hiding in the closet and was indeed asleep. In her dream, she watched the game live stream as a spectator, and her father was one of the players.
Her conditions are too good to pass up; perhaps just one viewing would be enough to make her a player.
While the audience watches the spectacle, they are silently corrupted; they are the future players.
Where is the host?
Xue Chao doesn't often interact with his colleagues, but with information from Holder, they occasionally meet at the company. There are also guests who are hosts at the tavern. As far as he knows, the common trait of hosts is strong mental strength.
For example, they may have a more resilient and stable mind, or simply possess immense mental strength.
The host is a game employee with a fixed room. They can actively choose the instance, while players can only be passively matched. The room's live stream is directed to the audience.
Throughout the entire process, the host is neither the mastermind behind the scenes nor the protagonist or the spectator, but is indispensable.
It can be said that the instance is distributed to the outside world through the host, first to the players, then to the audience, with the host acting as a bridge.
So that's how it is; they are the rainbow bridge connecting the divine realm and the human world.
Only those with strong mental fortitude can maintain the game room connecting the two worlds and continue to spread the pollution.
Therefore, the host does not have superpowers, because superpowers are the core of alienation. Developing superpowers will gradually lead to madness, and the host, as the bridge, must hold them up.
The host's advantage diminished later on because popularity and player scores continued to rise, the dungeon became more polluted, more viewers flocked in, the barriers between them moved closer to each other, the gaps became smaller and smaller, and the bridge in the middle was no longer needed.
Therefore, once the popularity score exceeds 95 points, players can directly interact with the audience, rendering the host useless.
Xue Chao entrusted Huang Haitao with taking care of the detective. He went down into the wine cellar alone. The wine cellar was filled with strangely shaped wines, all brewed from the emotions of the players in the game.
Most of the wine has been stored for many years and belongs to previous generations of collectors, while more has recently been added to the collection by new customers since the business reopened.
Among them were several of his duplicate bottles of wine. The fourth bottle was a small mechanical spirit tower with a chip inscribed with scriptures suspended in the wine. The fifth bottle was Dionysus's Wine, which grew golden branches.
“Dream…” Xue Chao murmured.
"The dream is in the starry sky, and you will see it soon." The evil god's cold breath blew on the back of his neck. Jiang Ming was tempted and wanted to have a wild time with his lover, but he restrained himself and did not disturb Xue Chao's thoughts.
Jiang Ming couldn't believe it, but he was indeed moved by the "future".
Xue Chao was pulled back to his senses by his increasingly intense heartbeat. He squeezed the hand that the Evil God had placed on his shoulder to reassure Jiang Ming and distract him: "Find me a bottle of wine."
What kind of wine?
"dusk."
The instance where Xue Chao meets the tavern owner is called "Twilight". Xue Chao saves the owner, who invites him for a drink. They hit it off immediately, and their fate begins from there.
The day the boss decided to join him, he opened this bottle of wine, wishing their rebellion a swift success.
Xue Chao remembered the taste of that glass of wine: spicy, yet full of life, giving one a destructive surge.
He understood what his boss meant: those unspoken hatreds and desires.
If the Crevice Consciousness considers itself Asgard, then may they bring twilight to the gods.
Back on the bustling first floor of the tavern, Xue Chao took a glass of wine to the champagne tower and poured it into the pointed glass. The golden-red mist of the wine spread downwards, like the sunset.
Each person had a cup, and everyone else tasted the same unique emotions he felt, their surprise followed by elation.
Previously, Xue Chao had invited several guests to try other wines. After drinking a little, they could feel the emotions in the wine, and after drinking enough, they could synchronize their spirit with the protagonist of the memory.
This was the final confirmation, and also an encouragement before they set off, even though they didn't know it yet.
Xue Chao raised his glass, a hint of calm madness surfacing in his languid expression: "To all those who bring twilight."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com