“Cough, cough.”
Su Yi pushed open the door of the basement and coughed twice. He put on a mask. There was a lot of dust here, mixed with the smell of rust and mold. The door hinge made a strange squeak.
In the gray dust, old furniture was piled up in a mess. It seemed that someone had rummaged through it, like a house raider or a robber.
“You’re here.”
The frivolous voice echoed in the basement.
Click. Su Yi turned on the flashlight and saw the magician standing in the middle of the room, wearing a black suit, with his hands in his pockets, leaning against an old stone bed.
A pretentious look?
"What do you want me to do?" Su Yi didn't rush over, but stood at the door and asked him.
"Don't stay so far away from me, come here, come here~" The magician waved at Su Yi with a smile.
Su Yi: ...
Life-saving system: "Wife, it's okay, go over. Although this dog is abnormal, it won't hurt you. Maybe it has found something."
…dog?
Su Yi was a little surprised by the term used in the life-saving system, but he did not ask any further questions. He walked towards the magician.
"Look, I found this great treasure under the bed."
The magician pointed at the ground. Su Yi lowered his head, stopped immediately, and unconsciously stepped back a little.
The stone bed was pushed open by the magician, revealing something underneath the bed:
...Hexagram!
A bright red hexagram was carved on the ground, and each line was a deep groove, like a huge blood groove.
This should be the hexagram array where Jennifer was sacrificed that year, but it shouldn't be bright red.
Su Yi frowned and walked closer to take a look. After so many years, the blood should have turned black. It couldn't be so red.
The flashlight was raised and aimed, and the bright light shone into the blood trough...
Suddenly, he saw something and Su Yi's hand holding the flashlight shook a little.
He pursed his lips and said nothing. His blood tank was filled with one thing:
Densely packed with insects, red ladybugs!
A large number of dead ladybugs piled up in the blood trough. Some of them were not yet completely dead, and their limbs twitched a few times.
Su Yi closed his eyes, enduring the discomfort, and when the flashlight shone on the edge of the hexagram array, he saw some words.
It seemed to be English letters... Su Yi looked at it a few more times, no, it seemed to be Latin.
The carving was very sloppy and was maliciously scratched. Su Yi stared at it for a long time but couldn't make out any words.
This should be a spell to teach people how to use a hexagram array...
"in addition?."
Suddenly, in the dark space, Su Yi heard the magician chanting:
"Look in front of the mirror and use your bright red body to carve a hexagram. Repeat this once a year."
! !
...Is the magician...telling him the meaning of that Latin phrase?
Su Yi had a very bad premonition in his heart, and he immediately shouted: "Stop talking!"
This Latin sentence was scratched, which meant that the player could not explore by himself. The system did not want people to explore. And the magician, as an NPC strictly controlled by the system, actually told him this directly?!
“Beep! Beep!”
Suddenly, a piercing alarm sounded, and Su Yi saw a number of blood-red pop-up windows pop up on the magician's screen:
[Warning! Serious warning! Player-Magician, while playing as [Ghost], deliberately leaked secrets to other players]
[Seriously violated the first rule of NPC: absolute loyalty to the system. The situation is extremely bad, loyalty needs to be tested, and now sentenced to B-level punishment]
“Sizzle—”
Su Yi saw a tower slowly rising in front of the magician...
electric chair!
Densely packed wires are connected to the helmet on the electric chair. Electric current will pass through the brain, and thick iron chains will bind the limbs. If you really sit on it...
"What are you standing there for? Run!"
Su Yi urged the magician desperately in a small and anxious voice, saying that the system's punishment could be avoided as long as one reacted quickly, just like what happened to Dr. Lin Na when she encountered the collar bomb. As long as one's physical fitness was strong enough to dodge it in an instant, everything would be fine!
But the magician did not hide. Instead, he stood there calmly with a frivolous smile on his face and his hands in his suit trousers, looking like a dandy and dissolute man.
...Why are you pretending to be cool in front of the electric chair! Su Yi was anxious and wanted to push the magician away, but the life-saving system immediately called out:
"Don't go, wife! You can't avoid the NPC's punishment."
If the player is punished and has the ability to dodge, the system will not punish him again for a short period of time and will let him off. However, if the NPC is found to be disloyal, he will be punished immediately. If he survives, he is lucky. If he dodges, it proves that he is disloyal to the system and will be executed directly.
Su Yi: "So... are we just going to stand here and watch him go to the electric chair?"
Life-saving system: "Don't worry about him. Look at how careless he is. He must have his own way."
The next second, Su Yi heard the magician speaking lazily to the screen:
"Isn't this a bit of an exaggeration?"
The hand in the black leather suit reached out and tapped the light screen, objecting to the punishment:
"So this is the plot, isn't it? The ghosts are chanting spells, scaring the shit out of the players who came here?"
The light screen did not answer him. The magician muttered to himself:
"Sorry, I forgot about it for a moment. That might be the original plot. Is it not in the new version now? Oh, it took me a long time to memorize that Latin passage."
The cursor on the screen flickered, and then a line of bright red blood words appeared:
[You've been an NPC for so many years that you've even forgotten the basic plot? ]
Magician: "I have been an NPC in so many dungeons, how can I remember every plot so clearly? Doesn't it mean that an old employee will never make mistakes at work?
"Besides, you caught such a beautiful player and let him in..." The magician looked at Su Yi teasingly:
"Which NPC can concentrate on his work? He even got confused about the plot for a moment? That's understandable."
The light screen turned its angle and aimed at Su Yi's face. Su Yi didn't know what to do now. He looked a little confused, and his slight expression made his whole face look more vivid and charming.
The blue light scanned the five senses, and the light screen began to read the scan results:
…one human detected, beauty rating:
S-level!
——The beauty that is too stunning is so attractive to 99.9% of people that even if you throw it in a crowd, you will be quickly noticed. When stared at closely, you may experience breathing difficulties, accelerated heartbeat, inability to think, and decreased brain intelligence.
Light screen: ...
Magician: "See, I didn't lie, did I? You judged me for making mistakes at work, not being dedicated enough, or being obsessed with sex, I admit all of that, but judging me for being disloyal to the system, that's a bit unfair, isn't it?"
The cursor on the screen flashed for three seconds, as if considering something. After a while, it changed the original judgment to:
[It has been detected that the player - Magician, while playing the role of [Ghost], made a major mistake in his work, neglected his duties, and was obsessed with lust. This has seriously violated the rules of dedication and devotion. He will be suspended from work and removed from the dungeon immediately.]
The light screen emitted a burst of blue light, enveloping the magician. The light gathered into a ball on his back and immediately sank, like a heavy weight, as if to press him to the ground...
The magician made a dull sound and squatted down, supporting himself with his hands on the ground, refusing to kneel down.
The pressure from the light screen became heavier and heavier, and veins bulged on his arms. He seemed to want to use all his strength to stay here, even for just one more second.
Su Yi walked up to him and saw the magician raising his head with difficulty. He was about to be unable to bear it, but he still had to force a smile on his face in front of him:
"Honey, I have to go."
"...You...are still pretending!" Su Yi squatted down and faced the magician. His skirt fell beside the magician's head. The pervert turned his head and sniffed deliberately:
"You still smell so good. I really want to smell you more."
"…Pervert." Su Yi turned away and whispered, but did not move her skirt. The magician lying on the ground could take another breath.
Fluffy's breath was under her skirt. Su Yi endured the heat. He wanted to ask the magician why he risked so much to tell him that sentence, and...
Why do this? Help him?
The magician... is a ghost, or... the ghost who first gave him the heart disease medicine.
At that time, Su Yi had not yet fallen ill, and the impression other players had of him was that he was a weak guy. It was impossible for them to know that he had a heart disease, let alone what medicine he usually took.
...If he wasn't someone who knew him in real life, how could he have handed him medicine not long after entering the dungeon? And now, even at the risk of being punished to death by the system, he still secretly recited one more line for him?
Su Yi opened his mouth towards the magician but didn't say a word.
He knew that he couldn't ask these questions. The magician had read the lines to him unintentionally, so how could he be helping him? If he really wanted to help him, then the magician would be proven to be disloyal to the system and would be dragged to the electric chair by the light screen.
"Don't worry, it's okay..."
The magician sounded out of breath, snap -
Su Yi heard a shattering sound.
He saw the magician under her skirt being entangled by the blue light. Then, the body wrapped in the black suit shattered piece by piece like ceramic, turning into countless data emitting blue light.
The magician raised his remaining head and smiled at Su Yi:
"You are so smart...we will meet again."
Su Yi reached out to him, not knowing whether she wanted to keep him or save him, and stretched out her white lace gloves...
With a snap, the magician's clown mask fell to the ground and shattered into pieces. The face that looked exactly like Bai Ye was shattered, and the magician's hands were empty. He disappeared from here completely!
Su Yi was stunned for a moment, and he didn't know why he felt lost. He asked sadly: Life-saving system:
"The magician... won't die, right?"
Life-saving system: "Tsk, why are you worried about that damned guy? He was just kicked out of the dungeon by the system, but you made it feel like a life-and-death separation? It's really disgusting, ugh——"
Su Yi: ...
Tap, tap, tap. Soon, Su Yi heard the sound of leather shoes outside the door. The steps were spaced at the same interval and sounded a bit mechanical.
After a while, the sound gradually faded away... Su Yi was alert:
"Who is that?"
Life-saving system: "It's an NPC ghost sent by the system to take over the role of [Magician]. He will continue to wander around the church to see if other players can unlock this exploration. It has nothing to do with us."
"Oh, it's safe? Good."
Su Yi turned on his own light screen and found something strange. He had clearly found the hexagram, but the exploration degree was still 95% (status disclosed).
…Why isn’t it rising?
Su Yi glanced at his small TV, which was filled with ghosts howling:
[Wuwuwu, what’s going on? Why did the screen go black just now? What do you mean the screen cannot be played due to system problems?!]
[I thought... hehe... the magician and his wife were in a small dark room underground... hehe... hehe...]
[Why is my wife the only one left now? Where is the magician? Why did he suddenly go offline? ? ]
[Now it seems to be changed to system NPC, I don’t know what’s going on, ah! This system NPC magician is so ugly! - screenshot.jpg]
Su Yi took a curious look, and indeed, it did not have the magician's own...indescribable temperament. Although it was modeled using Bai Ye's facial features, it was so stiff, like... some kind of plaster corpse, not as lively as the magician at all, as if... it was born that way.
[Honey, can you tell us where the magician went?]
Su Yi kept smiling and didn't answer. When the light screen discovered that the magician had violated the rules, it should have immediately blocked the broadcast of his small TV.
The audience cannot see the light screen's judgment of the NPC's behavior, nor can they hear the magician's explanation, and they have no idea what is happening.
Since the black screen was caused by the system, naturally no one would want him to say anything to the audience.
Su Yi did not explain. He walked to the hexagram array filled with ladybugs and observed it carefully, bringing the audience's attention back to the copy decryption.
The words that the magician risked his life to leave him must have a profound meaning. At that time, this guy said:
"Also, facing the mirror, use your bright red body to carve a six-pointed star array. Repeat this once a year.
The bright red living organisms should refer to these seven-spotted ladybugs. It can be repeated once a year. It is like using the six-pointed star for sacrifice. It is not a one-time thing and needs to be consolidated every year. The method is to use the bright red living organisms to draw the six-pointed star again.
The content of this sentence talks about how to "keep fresh" the hexagram after sacrifice, and the beginning says: In addition?
That is to say, the previous content: how to activate the hexagram array, is not even engraved on it.
Even if the magician wanted to tell him, there was really no way. Reading him the content of "another?" was already the limit.
Su Yi thought about it carefully again. Since it is a limit, it must be a useful limit. If he says it, it will be in vain. So the magician will not take the risk.
Since the magician said so, it must be useful. Doesn't that mean that just by saying "in addition?" we can actually deduce how to use the hexagram array?
Su Yi repeated this sentence in his mind again. The word after "In addition?" was: in front of the mirror?.
...Mirror? Where is it?
When offering sacrifice, the hexagram array should be facing the mirror?!
This blood groove hexagram is engraved on the ground, and most people will reflexively look for it on the ceiling.
But Su Yi paused for a moment, and quickly remembered that the hexagram was carved under the stone bed.
There might be a mirror embedded at the bottom of the stone bed? It just happens to reflect the hexagram.
"Give me a crowbar." Su Yi said to the life-saving system.
"Wife, are you capable? It would be better to ask Bai Ye to do this kind of physical work..."
"Give me."
The life-saving system handed him an automatic force-enhancing crowbar. Su Yi's thin body held the crowbar and inserted it into the stone bed. His slender fingertips continuously input a larger Newton force value on the right side, and the power of the crowbar became stronger and stronger, and finally bang -
With a loud bang, the stone bed was completely overturned.
Under the bed, there was indeed a two-meter-long mirror reflecting a burst of silver light.
[Congratulations! Player Su Xinniang has collected the last fragment: the blood tank hexagram under the mirror under the bed! Players need to observe the mirror under the bed and the hexagram at the same time to determine that the collection is complete]
[Congratulations! You have completed the most difficult hidden task in this instance: Collecting the Six-pointed Stars (5/5). Now we will announce the hidden locations and methods of obtaining the five six-pointed stars:
① In the lid of Grace's silver skull box, it can be seen by reflection; ② The dark pattern on the back cover of the old pastor's Bible, it can be felt by hand; ③ The inside of the skull of the bones in the garden, after digging out the bones, you can observe carefully; ④ On the magician's chest, you will know the identity of the ghost when he reveals it; ⑤ The hexagram in the blood groove under the mirror under the bed, you will definitely find it after lifting the stone bed.
[Hidden tasks will only be rewarded after they are successfully completed. If any hidden task is missing, no reward will be issued, and the player will not be given any prompts that the hidden task has been unlocked.]
[You are the first player in the history of script-killing to unlock, collect, and complete this task. Your final exploration degree is rewarded: +5%! ]
On Su Yi's screen, the number 95% suddenly turned into 100%! A series of fireworks and musical fountains exploded in his ears:
[Congratulations! You have become a super player with a 100% exploration degree, which is unprecedented and will never be repeated! Your amazing achievement will be recorded in history forever! ]
His small TV seemed to have exploded, with comments gushing out like the shock wave of a bomb. All the viewers were immersed in the ecstasy of witnessing history and were swiping the screen like crazy.
...No one is discussing why the magician disappeared, why the TV screen is black, and why the light screen won't play for them.
Su Yi was not lost in this huge glory. The joy of passing the level and the pride of making history were all very calm to him. His thin eyebrows were slightly frowned:
Something is wrong...
Did the magician read that line to him just to tell him that the mirror was at the bottom of the bed?
There is a better way to give him a hint. Pretend to kick the bed board unintentionally. It will be much more effective than this sentence.
There must be something else...
[Congratulations to player Su Xinniang, for unlocking 100% of the truth exploration and successfully clearing the level! ]
The golden road to the customs stretched out behind him, paved with heavy gold coins all the way. On both sides of the road were flowers and encouraging applause. Countless colorful strips rose in the sky, all of which were praises selected from the audience's barrage.
The light screen system creates such a scene, welcoming and seeing off every successful person who passes the level, and inflating their vanity.
Su Yi didn't care, or rather, he simply disdained Guangping's reward for him. Was this kind of thing worthy of rewarding him?
He wants to find the real truth.
[Player - Su Xinniang, congratulations on your successful clearance and obtaining 100% exploration! ]
The light screen was still broadcasting, but Su Yi remained motionless. He remained where he was, brainstorming, and the details of this copy kept popping up:
The note left by the murderer: [A dark and narrow room, a wide and large mirror, put the fourth body on the table, and you are only one pair of hands away from the truth]
Lines left by the magician: "Also, facing the mirror, use your bright red body to carve a hexagram. Repeat once a year."
The eldest young master once told him: This copy has been deleted and modified, maybe there are still clues to escape from here somewhere...
[Player - Su Xinniang, you have cleared the level, the truth exploration degree is 100%, there is nothing you can explore in this copy! ]
...It got anxious.
Su Yi sneered in his heart. He ignored the interruption of the light screen and continued thinking along his own lines:
First of all, it is certain that when using the hexagram array for sacrifice, not all bright red objects can be used.
After the sacrifice is successful, you can find any bright red object to draw a six-pointed star, once a year, or even use a seven-spotted ladybug as a substitute. But the bright red object for the sacrifice must be special...
For example, the blood of the bride.
The previous six-pointed star sacrifices were carefully selected by? Jennifer was the second one, and Grace was the fourth one...
Su Yi realized that he was the fifth sacrifice.
In other words, he was qualified to participate in the sacrifice.
What if he sacrificed himself in this copy?
Will the hexagram respond to the truth he wants?
To put it more scientifically, the setting of the hexagram is just a metaphysical plot in the design of this copy. The real logic is: because the eldest master said that there might be clues to escape hidden in the bride copy, then is it possible that the person who originally designed this copy wanted to use the setting of the hexagram to convey something very valuable to later players?
These things can only be obtained by opening the hexagram array, and because of deletion and modification issues, they are no longer included in the 100% exploration degree.
The question is, how to activate the hexagram array?
[A small, dark room and a large, wide mirror?] Both of these conditions have been met.
The next step [putting the fourth corpse on display] can be understood as putting up a sacrifice, and Su Yi himself is the sacrifice.
Then the magician's line is connected: "Look in the mirror and draw a six-pointed star with a bright red object."
This can be understood as using one's own blood as a sacrifice to draw a hexagram on the mirror.
In this way? From what I can see, the method of sacrifice has been revealed, but there is still one detail. Su Yi thought of the last sentence:
[You are only one pair of hands away from the truth]
Hands...Draw a hexagram on the mirror with blood on your hands?
So in what order? Which stroke should be drawn first?
The light screen system mechanically urged him to clear the level! ! Su Yi ignored it, and finally, it popped up a bright red warning:
[Warning to players - Su Xinniang! Please clear the level as soon as possible! Countdown 90 seconds]
[If you still stay in this instance within 90 seconds, you will be deemed to have violated the rules and will be severely punished! ]
Su Yi ignored it. The more anxiously the light screen jumped, the more it showed that there was something fishy going on. His sight was focused on the blood groove of the hexagram...
There are a lot of ladybugs in the blood trough...red ones.
Suddenly! Su Yi keenly discovered that the bright red in the blood trough was of different shades?!
This means that the thickness of the group of seven-spotted ladybug corpses... is different?
Su Yi suddenly thought that pouring these ladybug corpses was like drawing a hexagram, so there must be a drawing order, and because of the different forces, it was impossible to pour them very evenly.
The hexagram is composed of an equilateral triangle and an inverted triangle. Which side should be drawn first and which side should be drawn next... Su Yi immediately observed the depth of the ladybug corpse carefully. He found that at the vertex of the equilateral triangle, the ladybug corpse was thicker and more numerous, and then extended to the right and gradually became lighter.
This means that the apex is the moment of the first fall, and then the hand moves along the apex to the right, and the ladybug bodies fall intermittently. Because the hand does not spread the bodies evenly, the ladybug bodies become scarcer.
The situation is the same for the inverted triangle. There are the most corpses at the top, and then they gradually become sparse to the left. Unlike the regular triangle, there are more ladybug corpses on the inverted triangle side that are spilled outside the blood trough, as if the hand movements are not so agile.
This seven-spotted ladybug hexagram was made by the murderer Lin Xiu. She wanted to consolidate the effectiveness of her body Jennifer. Lin Xiu is right-handed, so her right hand is more stable and her left hand is less stable, which means the inverted triangle was drawn with her left hand.
In this way, the correct method of drawing the hexagram is completely deduced: the right hand starts from the vertex of the equilateral triangle and draws to the right, and the left hand draws from the vertex of the inverted triangle to the left. Both hands complete the drawing of the hexagram array on the mirror at the same time.
Su Yi figured it all out in a flash. The light screen behind him counted down mercilessly. The audience on the small TV had no idea what he was doing. Su Yi threw the small TV to the ground and quickly walked to the mirror on the overturned stone bed.
No one understood what he was doing, only the life-saving system whispered to him in his heart:
"Come on, wife."
Su Yi knelt in front of the mirror, lowered her swan neck, and bit her finger hard. Bright red blood beads appeared on the delicate fingertips wrapped in white lace.
He raised his hands to the old gray mirror, and blood left scarlet marks on the mirror along with his fingertips...
The upper and lower triangles overlapped each other, and a beautiful blood-red hexagram was engraved on the mirror.
The dark basement suddenly became extremely quiet.
Su Yi's heart was pounding. He stared at the mirror and waited for a while:
The mirror was empty, nothing appeared.
...Did the sacrifice fail? Was there something wrong with the method or...?
At this moment, he suddenly heard a very faint voice: Da—
A sound, like water drops,
Then there are three quick sounds: Di.Di.Di. followed by two sounds: Da—, Da—
This is... It's Morse Code!
The sound was too faint, and Su Yi was still frightened. If he didn't pay full attention, or if his attention was only focused on what would appear in the mirror without mobilizing all his senses to concentrate, he would completely miss it.
Morse code is now a well-known code, consisting of two basic signals and different intervals: a short dot signal ".", read (Di), and a long signal "—" maintained for a certain period of time, read (Da—).
The first Da- represents the letter N.
The following: Di.Di.Di. Da—, Da—, represents the number 3
The light screen was still counting down anxiously, but Su Yi completely ignored it. He leaned over the mirror seriously, listening and writing without distraction.
The number after 3 is 7, and then after two seconds, there are two more numbers...
In the absolute silence that isolated him from all external objects, Su Yi and the life-saving system reached a silent understanding that when the final countdown came, the life-saving system would definitely remind him.
So now he just needs to listen carefully to the information conveyed by the mirror and hear as much as he can. The life-saving system will help him control the countdown.
Tiny, crystal clear beads of sweat rolled down his smooth forehead and dripped onto his curled eyelashes.
Su Yi blinked and didn't even have time to wipe it.
He was completely immersed in a state of ecstasy, not even aware of time, until the end, Su Yi heard all the messages:
N37
Interval 2 seconds 59W116
Interval 2 seconds 21ST5F1
...What does this mean?
"Wife! Countdown five! Four! Three..."
The life-saving system called out in her heart, and Su Yi quickly turned around, lifted the hem of her wedding dress, and jumped into the golden clearance passage——
[Congratulations to player Su Xinniang, 100% clearance success! ]
The anxious light screen returned to normal at this moment. Spotlights shone from both sides of the Golden Avenue, and Su Yi raised his arms to block them.
"Ahhh, my wife! My real wife! So white and beautiful!"
Su Yi heard many spectators screaming on both sides of the avenue. He couldn't see their faces, only their densely packed black shadows, standing at the bottom of the golden avenue.
...It's like a celebrity red carpet scene.
The audience saw this new god player who made history walking out. Unlike the previous NO.1 machine gun who walked in a cool and arrogant manner, this young bride walked calmly, like an elegant swan floating quietly on the lake. She did not have the ecstasy and frenzy of ordinary players who had just passed the level.
The elegant swan, wearing a holy wedding dress, remained calm in the face of the scattered gold coins, flowers, screams and applause, as if she was used to it, or as if she didn't care at all. She was so beautiful that people could not get her and could only look up at her from the audience.
Su Yi walked in small steps on the road paved with gold coins. Rewards, screams, flowers, applause, praises for him... came in an endless stream. Not only the audience, but also he could hear the light screen giving him various gold coins, upgrades, and props for passing levels...
These things are nothing but rewards from the system to players who have passed the level. In the final analysis, it is still the upper level looking down on the lower level. When the players disobey, the system can execute any player it wants.
Su Yi was not moved by these generous rewards. He held this line of information tightly, as if he was strangling the whole world by its throat.
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