Chapter 75
The movies in the theater were short films of only about ten minutes, and no one was in the mood to watch a movie.
Shen Yunzhe was always paying attention to the hope around him, while Zhang Xian was constantly observing his surroundings. The director's screams outside had disappeared, but after the screams disappeared, there was a chewing sound, like an impolite person was gnawing on bones and slurping noodles.
The sound was not obvious among the chaotic sound effects of the movie, but it made the hairs on Zhang Xian's back stand up.
He couldn't help but think: What was eaten? Was it really eaten?
The movie ended, the lights came on again, the screen became dark, and Codename Hope finally raised his head from Shen Yunzhe's arms. His eyes were fixed on the screen, and the black was reflected in his silver pupils.
"Shen Yunzhe." Codename Hope said, "There's something behind."
Shen Yunzhe raised his eyebrows slightly. He stood up and walked to the screen. He touched the black screen with his hand. The screen felt cold. At this moment, Shen Yunzhe heard a creaking sound. Not only him, but Zhang Xian behind him also heard it. Zhang Xian was so scared that he almost jumped up.
Shen Yunzhe's hand was still on the screen, and he looked at the screen with strange eyes.
Crunch, crunch...
There was a subtle movement transmitted from the screen to Shen Yunzhe's fingers. Something inside was moving, and it was transmitted to Shen Yunzhe's fingers little by little with a small tremor.
Shen Yunzhe looked at Zhang Xian and asked, "Is your ability useful?"
"What's good or not?"
"I'm asking you, is it dangerous?" Shen Yunzhe pointed at the things on the screen. "Can't you sense danger?"
Zhang Xian shook his head, his eyes firm. "I don't feel any danger, not at all."
"But I don't recommend you trust my intuition, because this isn't necessarily a special ability, and the noises here are too strange. There can't be rats in the playground."
"It's okay." Shen Yunzhe said, "I believe you."
As he spoke, Shen Yunzhe hit the screen hard with his fist. The screen went black in just one hit. Zhang Xian was shocked. He never expected that Shen Yunzhe would really do that. His mind was full of swear words, but a wonderful chemical reaction occurred in his heart.
Shen Yunzhe believes him?
In this environment, even in the conflict between Shen Yunzhe and his official identity, Shen Yunzhe actually believed in his intuition?
This has to be said to be quite surprising.
Because Shen Yunzhe did think about getting rid of Zhang Xian, and Zhang Xian also discovered this. In this situation, taking the initiative is the most natural thing to do. If Zhang Xian told a lie, the consequences would be quite terrible. But even so, Shen Yunzhe believed him without hesitation.
It was rare for Zhang Xian to agree with the statement "Shen Yunzhe is a good person".
Although he wanted to kill himself, although he did not tell the truth to the authorities, and although Shen Yunxi came out of nowhere, maybe... Shen Yunzhe is really a good person.
Crack, the scratching sound became louder, and the screen began to shake.
Shen Yunzhe retreated quickly, and Zhang Xian also walked back. Codenamed Hope had never come over from the beginning. A big hole appeared on the screen from the crack, and a bunch of white bones fell out of the broken hole. The white bones shattered the moment they hit the ground.
Zhang Xian sighed, "It seems to be an ordinary skeleton."
"Was the scratching sound just now made by this skeleton?"
Zhang Xian became nervous again. "I don't know, but why did a skeleton fall out of the screen?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the bones jumped, and those handsome white flowers scattered around, jumping around. Shen Yunzhe and Zhang Xian stepped back, absolutely not wanting to get close to the bones.
At this moment, something fell from the hole in the screen. It seemed to be a notebook. The notebook hit the bone hard. The bone trembled for a while and then lay motionless on the ground. Shen Yunzhe and Zhang Xian looked at each other. In the end, Zhang Xian swallowed his saliva and went over to pick up the notebook.
There was a line of words written on the notebook: "Will".
"Will?" Zhang Xian frowned. "I was actually wondering why the director appeared in this theater."
"Even if the girl was targeted because she accidentally lost her glasses, it wouldn't be the director himself. He's the owner of the amusement park and wouldn't just show up and embarrass a tourist."
Shen Yunzhe looked at the skeleton and said, "It can only mean that he died here."
Zhang Xian understood what Shen Yunzhe meant, because he had the same idea now. He glanced down at the skeleton, then opened the notebook where the "Will" was written. Sure enough, in the notebook he saw the writer narrating what had happened in the tone of the headmaster.
Through this self-narration, they finally found out what happened in the amusement park.
Leyang Amusement Park was once the largest amusement park in Qingcheng City. It had complete amusement equipment and covered a large area. It had always been very popular. As the director of the amusement park, he was always very relieved. Until one day, something went wrong when a girl was playing on a pirate ship. She was thrown off the high pirate ship and died on the spot.
The amusement park could not avoid being held accountable, so he paid a large sum of money as compensation and told tourists sincerely that it was just an accident. They immediately closed for renovations, but this did not win back the hearts of tourists.
As a result, Leyang Amusement Park went from being the largest amusement park in the city to being deserted, and everyone would ask: "The amusement park where people died?"
After barely holding on for a year, he finally couldn't hold on any longer. The amusement park was about to close down, and he had to find a way to revive it. However, he was too old to capture the hearts of young people, and instead, the amusement park was dragged down by publicity and its business got worse and worse.
But things soon took a turn for the better.
Suddenly some strange things happened in the city. It was said that the largest hospital in Qingcheng City moved overnight, and a large number of medical staff went crazy in the inpatient building, causing panic among the people. However, a week later, it was heard that the best No. 1 and No. 2 middle schools in the city also had problems, and some teachers went crazy and hacked students.
It is said that a more remote exhibition hall also closed down for strange reasons, and the curator disappeared without a trace.
He suddenly thought: Can I take advantage of this trend and turn my playground into a strange place to attract people's attention?
He did it right away, and it happened to be the anniversary of the dead girl's death. He didn't know why he actually did it as if he was possessed by a ghost.
He fabricated the girl's past, re-edited her life, placed small accessories belonging to the girl in various game items, and asked the staff to pretend to be the girl's ghost. Sure enough, this operation really attracted customers. They were all curious whether there were really ghosts here, and whether this place was the same as a hospital or a high school.
But he never thought that it was all true!
First, someone saw a woman in white in the haunted house, then someone saw a female ghost climbing on the glass on the Ferris wheel, and then there were hairpins scattered under the carousel. He was absolutely sure that these hairpins were not thrown by him, but they really appeared.
After that, tourists began to die. Some tourists jumped off the Ferris wheel and died on the spot.
The police kept coming and people kept dying. Even if the entire amusement park was sealed off, it was of no use. Creatures, whether they were tourists or not, swarmed in and kept dying. This place really became a scary place, just like the place in the legend.
Finally, the director hanged himself from the beam here.
He thought: It was me who insulted the dead, it was me who harmed everyone, I will give you my life now, please don’t be angry and hurt others anymore!
From the beginning to the end, the director thought that it was his actions that angered the dead female ghost.
"Qingcheng City." Zhang Xian looked at the word, "Qingcheng City again."
Shen Yunzhe looked at Zhang Xian, "What happened in Qingcheng?"
"No, we are officially sorting through all the gaming venues we can investigate. As you know, we have gathered a lot of information, including Qingcheng." Zhang Xian said: "So far, almost all the gaming venues are from Qingcheng."
"There is no Qing City in our world. This may be a playground city, or a disappeared city."
"What's the meaning?"
"This is based on the perspective of our reality being invaded by strange events." Zhang Xian frowned slightly. "What if, at the beginning, Qingcheng was just a normal and ordinary city like ours, but one day, the amusement park eroded reality and gradually swallowed up the entire city..."
"You guessed right." Codename Hope suddenly spoke.
Zhang Xian was stunned for a moment. He suddenly turned his head to look at Codename Hope, "Shen Yunxi? What did you say?!"
"You guessed right. This is a city just like real life." Codename Hope sat there and looked around. "The city is real, the location is real, and the background story is real too. It's just that it was eroded to the extreme by the game field and became the next game field."
Zhang Xian stared at the code name Hope. He clenched his hands tightly, and his nails seemed to be digging into his palms.
His eyes quickly turned red. "There used to be so many people here, people just like us, but all of them..."
"Yes." Codename Hope smiled and said, "And when you can no longer hold on, when more and more players join, your reality will become like this."
He even said in a coaxing voice: "So, do you really think that eliminating all players is a bad idea?"
Zhang Xian stared at him in a rage, "Why should I believe you?"
Codename Hope smiled happily. He didn't say anything else, but his silver eyes were full of sarcasm.
He was smiling, but Shen Yunzhe could feel that he was sad.
He was so upset that he was about to explode and wanted to overturn the entire playground.
Shen Yunzhe put his hand on his shoulder, and the warmth of his palm passed through his clothes to his body. Codename Hope subconsciously rubbed his wrist, his eyes slightly narrowed.
"By the time I joined the official world, the news had already gotten out of control. The official world had no way to control the news and had to make it public. The world order was completely disrupted. At that time, the official world didn't give up, the players didn't give up, no one gave up. They kept trying to find a solution. To be honest, if Corrosion was in my world, it would definitely not die."
"It's a shame that erosion will be used as a last resort to control large crowds from entering the playground."
Codename Hope laughed, "Then, reality eroded faster and faster. Within just six months, the authorities regretted their actions."
"They regret not getting rid of all the players right away. They regret not ruthlessly closing this loophole from the start. Newbie, if you continue to be indecisive, you may not end up any better off than I did."
Zhang Xian could no longer face Shen Yunzhe and codenamed Hope normally as before.
He took the notebook and turned around and ran out of the theater, leaving only Shen Yunzhe and codename Xiwang there.
"Will the situation really get that bad?" Shen Yunzhe looked at him.
"At least we couldn't stop it." Codename Hope opened his eyes and looked ahead, his voice very soft, "There are strange things everywhere, and the ground has become a playground. That dark thing has taken root there, and its disgusting roots are constantly spreading."
"I can't stop it, and the authorities can't stop it either."
Shen Yunzhe thought for a moment, "What's the result of your efforts?"
"The result." Codename Hope looked at Shen Yunzhe. Shen Yunzhe's figure was reflected in his eyes, like a ray of light in the darkness.
He didn't answer, but instead asked: "Shen Yunzhe, do you know how to approach the origin of the game field?"
Shen Yunzhe thought for a moment and said, "I seem to remember you saying that by destroying the main body, which is the medium's playground, we can get closer to the source."
"But that's just getting close. There's a more effective method," Codename Hope said. "Enter this playground, complete the mission, and destroy the main body of the playground before leaving. That way, you'll see the playground's true origin, or be devoured."
"Guess how I got into that little box?" Codename Hope said with a smile, "Yes, that's how I got in."
Codename Hope was smiling, but Shen Yunzhe felt like he was crying.
"Hope?" Shen Yunzhe sat next to him. "You're so sad, it makes me sad too."
"I'm sorry." Codename hoped to apologize honestly. There was no sad expression on his face, his eyes just staring straight ahead.
He said: "Shen Yunzhe, Qingcheng City is my home."
Shen Yunzhe was completely stunned.
He opened his eyes slightly and couldn't help but turn his head to look at him.
Shen Yunzhe had never thought of such a thing.
He knew that Codename Hope was always in a bad mood. He hated the playground and would only feel better when he was with Shen Yunzhe. He could not stand the dark night in the playground. Shen Yunzhe took a lot of effort to calm him down, but he never thought that Qingcheng, which did not exist in reality, was actually the home of Codename Hope.
In other words: these playgrounds are all the real world after the code name hope has been eroded.
How should he feel?
In order to prevent the playground from eroding reality, he entered the dark little box and stayed there for more than 20 years. Twenty years later, he contacted Shen Yunzhe and briefly saw the sky outside, but suddenly discovered that the playground that Shen Yunzhe was avoiding was actually his distorted home.
The cities in his memory turned into playgrounds, where countless terrifying stories were played out.
What is the significance of these twenty years?
"Shen Yunzhe." Codename Hope clenched Shen Yunzhe's hand. He closed his eyes and nestled in Shen Yunzhe's arms. "I'm in a bad mood. Can you comfort me? I have nothing else but you."
In fact, he had nothing left a long time ago. Shen Yunzhe was just his parallel self, himself.
He could only find himself to complain about his grievances.
"I thought, at least I could hold on a little longer, and there were still people I could control." Codename Hope's voice was soft and trembling.
The almost explosive sadness and loneliness poured into Shen Yunzhe's body. Shen Yunzhe was infected by this huge emotion, and when he reacted, he had already hugged the person who was approaching him.
He felt so wronged and sad, and Shen Yunzhe was also affected and felt so wronged and sad.
Two such lonely people can only snuggle together to keep each other warm.
Taking a deep breath to suppress the hidden pain in his heart, he lowered his eyes and looked at Code Name Hope who was holding the corner of his clothes tightly with her eyes closed.
He is Shen Yunzhe's strongest partner, but also Shen Yunzhe's most vulnerable partner. He developed a lot of bad habits after being locked up in a small dark room. He loves to lie and pretend to be pitiful, but when he is really sad, no one has the heart to blame him.
But it was too late to turn back. When Codename chose to go in, he could no longer get out.
He only has three days before he has to return to that dark little box, unable to see the light and enduring the darkness.
The cruel reality made him see the ending, the ending he always wanted to know but dared not know, and it tore apart his only light.
Shen Yunzhe sighed, feeling a little depressed.
Why is he the only one who suffers? Even his allies count!
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