Chapter 100: New World Weird Museum (Part 2)
Everyone looked at Gu Rong as if he were an enlarged version of Dumpling, feeling extremely friendly and naturally developing a liking for the handsome young man in front of them.
If the cub grows up, he will probably be like the boy in front of him, as fresh as the first sprout after the spring rain.
Shen Hanxiao's eyes moved around the school uniforms of Gu Rong and Zhou Yan, and he said with a smile: "Classmate, what's your name?"
Zhou Yan remembered Gu Rong's instructions and spoke before Gu Rong could speak: "My name is Xiaoxian, and his name is Xiaolu."
Everyone was silent again. This name didn't sound like a real name.
Shen Hanxiao: "Fake name?"
Gu Rong nodded.
006: [……]
Zhou Yan: “…”
No, why would you answer a question honestly when someone asks you? What's the point of using a pseudonym?
006 said: [Host, why does it feel like this vest is the same whether I'm wearing it or not?]
Gu Rong, however, was struggling with another issue: "Have I grown in the same proportion as I did when I was two? But I don't feel that way."
006 nodded: [Yes, the difference between the host and the cub is that one is big and the other is small.]
Gu Rong: [……]
Then why are you saying it now?
Everyone walked towards Exhibition Hall No. 2 with mixed feelings.
Because Gu Rong and Zizi were so similar, everyone paid more attention to him. They frequently talked to him along the way, and their attitude was indescribably gentle.
To be honest, it is probably the love of elders for their younger generations.
Zhou Yan felt ignored, but he didn't feel anything. He just felt strange. These people looked about the same age as them, so why did they all want to be Rong Cub's father?
Zhou Yan thought this group of people was very strange. The old hen was protecting her chicks in front of Gu Rong.
Although because he was half a head shorter than Gu Rong, he couldn't protect him at all.
Everyone realized that they were too enthusiastic towards the child, and in order to avoid scaring him, they all restrained themselves.
Everyone soon arrived at Exhibition Hall No. 2.
As expected, Hall 2 features items related to the "Ghost Ship" dungeon. Two cruise ship models stand facing each other: the Pharaoh on the left and a ghost ship made of skulls and covered in rose branches on the right.
Two cruise ships occupy each side of the exhibition hall, and there are many miniature figures on the decks of the cruise ships.
On the Pharaoh were Captain Alpha, King Louis XIII, Xiao Lin, and Mr. Sen in a wheelchair. Behind them were many other people from different classes, including nobles wearing wigs and lowly people in tattered clothes.
The ghost ship is filled with a group of "shark-like" crew members, whose skin is in a skeleton-like state to varying degrees, and there are devil sharks on the deck that are used as food.
And on the ceiling above his head was the projection of a translucent man under the sea, and the soul ring.
Zhou Yan had been on edge, but after half an hour in the dungeon, he hadn't seen any ghosts. The exquisiteness of the exhibits before him was breathtaking, and he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief: "These exhibits are so amazing. It's a pity there are no similar ones in real life, otherwise I would definitely collect a set, Rongzi..."
Gu Rong: “?”
Everyone turned their heads to look over instantly, their eyes flickering between the two of them.
Zhou Yan paused for a moment, then quickly corrected himself: "...I'll let you talk for a minute. Why are we looking at the exhibits? Shouldn't we be looking for a way out?"
Gu Rong: “…”
006: [……]
You've been talking all the time.
Among the five players, Lin Xuezhuo and Xie Lingjiu are quiet and taciturn, while Zhao Jiuquan is the type who “never talks too much when he can take action” and mainly communicates with others with a solemn and smiling face.
Shen Han smiled and said, "Since we are here, it would be a waste if we don't go shopping."
Lin Xuezhou looked at the projection on the ceiling, then retracted his gaze and said, "Everyone should have guessed the exhibits in the other exhibition halls."
Zhuang Yu said, "Yes, the exhibition halls should correspond to game dungeons, or more precisely, to the dungeons where Tuanzi appears. But Tuanzi only participated in five dungeons, yet there are six exhibition halls here. What could the remaining hall be?"
Xie Lingjiu said, "It should be the original version of 'The Museum of Strange Things'."
As soon as Xie Lingjiu opened his mouth, everyone thought of his original identity.
Xie Lingjiu was backstabbed by Mu Xingye in "The Weird Museum". Not only was his face taken away, but he also became a copy NPC and remained in the museum as an exhibit.
The third exhibition hall is dedicated to "Little Zombies," a room filled with wax figures of zombies covered in talismans, their faces green and fangs radiating lifelike, exactly like the zombies seen in movies.
When Zhou Yan saw a room full of zombies wearing Qing Dynasty official uniforms, his eyes widened and he couldn't help but exclaim "Wow!"
"This looks just like the real thing. The craftsmanship is even better than the ones in the wax museum."
Gu Rong couldn't help laughing: "Have you seen the real thing?"
Zhou Yan: "I've seen it in movies. Why not merge this exhibition hall with Hall 2? We can create a theme like Zombies vs. Godzilla."
Gu Rong: “…”
＊
The museum has two exhibition halls, each with three exhibition rooms. After visiting the "Little Zombies" themed exhibition hall, you need to cross the artificial lake and go to Hall 2.
The artificial lake is calm without a ripple, like a mirror. The lake reflects two exhibition halls, standing on both sides, with a pavilion in the middle.
Gu Rong and Zhou Yanzhui were at the end.
Zhou Yan had been holding his breath all the way, but now he couldn't hold it back any longer. He tugged at Gu Rong's sleeve, looked at the five people in front of him, and whispered, "These players all look very experienced, not like newbies. Could this be their first time playing the game? Also, why doesn't that guy over there speak but only gestures? Is he mute?"
Zhao Jiuquan looked back at them, his gaze lingering on Gu Rong for a second, then quickly turned his head back.
Zhou Yan immediately covered his mouth.
Gu Rong sighed: "You'd better stop talking."
Zhou Yan couldn't help but feel startled. His voice was clearly very low just now, but how could he still hear it? It would be a shame if he didn't take the English test for this listening comprehension test.
At this time, Shen Hanxiao, who was walking in front, said, “Why do I feel like something is missing?”
Zhuang Yu said, "Zizi NPC."
Everyone suddenly realized.
There are five exhibition halls corresponding to five copies, but in these five copies, the cub is definitely the most important NPC. Why do other NPCs have model figures, but the cub does not?
Lin Xuezhuo glanced at Gu Rong casually and said, "If the NPC Zaizai himself is in the game, it can just fill this gap."
Zhuang Yuxi said, "So, Tuanzi is also in this instance? We'll be able to see Tuanzi again soon?"
Gu Rong walked at the end, looking at the smooth lake surface, without saying a word.
Zhou Yan was completely confused and didn't understand at all.
What's a dumpling? What's a kid? Are there children in this horror game?
No way, what kind of game is so cruel that it involves children?
*
The first five exhibition halls were no surprise, and everyone soon arrived at Hall 6.
However, this time, as soon as they entered the exhibition hall, everyone stopped and realized something was wrong.
Looking at the scene before them, everyone's expression changed.
There are two more exhibition halls and six exhibition rooms in Exhibition Hall No. 6. There is an artificial lake between the two exhibition halls and a pavilion on the lake.
Zhou Yan was slow to react, not knowing what was happening. He asked in confusion, "Huh? Why are there six small exhibition halls here?"
No one said anything, hesitated for a moment, and walked into the exhibition hall.
The first five exhibition halls still corresponded to five copies, just like before. When they arrived at Exhibition Hall 6 and walked in, they found the same situation again: two exhibition halls and six exhibition halls, with an artificial lake and pavilion in the middle.
"Fuck, why are there six more exhibition halls? Where are the nesting dolls?"
Zhou Yan was shocked and realized that something was wrong.
After all, the other players had seen big scenes before, so they looked relatively calm. However, it was Zhou Yan's first time in a dungeon, so he was quite scared.
This museum is like a nesting doll. Once you enter Hall 6, there are six more halls. After the first five, you enter the sixth, and there are six more halls. It's endless, as if you'll never reach the end.
Zhou Yan grabbed Gu Rong's arm and said, "This is terrifying. Let's quickly turn back. This is clearly a trap. It feels like we'll never be able to finish it."
Gu Rong shook his head, his voice calm, without a trace of panic: "It's useless. The place where we first came in is not necessarily the first floor. No matter whether we go forward or backward, we will never reach the end. It's like entering the Penrose Staircase."
Everyone's eyes fell on Gu Rong.
This boy is handsome, smart and clever, he is indeed worthy of being an enlarged version of Zai Zai.
When they saw the boy, they all began to miss the little cub.
Shen Han smiled and said, "The classmate's analysis is very accurate. It turns out that high school students have very sharp minds."
Zhou Yan, a poor student, didn't hear clearly: "What stairs? Snail stairs?"
Everyone: “…”
Well, not all high school students are smart.
Gu Rong said, "A Penrose staircase is a staircase that always goes up or down but never ends. It can also be compared to a Möbius strip or a Klein bottle. Whether we go forward or backward, it's useless and we'll never reach the end."
Everyone agreed with Gu Rong's statement.
At this point, they are like a point on a straight line. Since a straight line has no endpoints, no matter whether they move forward or backward, they cannot reach the end or the starting point. In other words, they are on a circle, with the end point being the starting point and the starting point being the end point.
Gu Rong said in his mind: [I think I know where the way out is.]
006 said: [Host, you thought of it so quickly? ]
Gu Rong said: [Game 1.0's rebirth is to destroy the old world in order to build a new one. If Game 1.0 were replaced by a museum, to find the way out, I'd probably have to destroy the museum.]
006 said: [However, the system said from the beginning that the exhibits in the museum cannot be damaged.]
Gu Rong lowered his thick eyelashes, thought for a moment, and suddenly raised his eyes to look at the mirror-like surface of the lake.
Halls 1 and 2 are clearly reflected in the lake, making it look like another museum.
Want to destroy the museum without damaging the items, only...
006 reacted instantly: [It can only be destroyed in water! ]
*
Gu Rong told other players his speculation.
When everyone heard this, they looked at Gu Rong with a little more inquiry.
Zhuang Yu looked at Gu Rong and said, "Isn't this your first time entering the game?"
Only after watching the "Paradise of Doom" copy did you know that destroying the old world and building a new world is a sentence in the "Revelation".
Gu Rong looked back at Zhuang Yu and nodded.
When he was a baby, Zhuang Yu often held him in her arms. Now he had grown up, and was almost as tall as Zhuang Yu. When they stood together, they could already look at each other at eye level.
It would be a lie to say that Gu Rong didn't feel emotional when meeting an old friend again.
My emotions are overflowing, but I haven't expressed them clearly until now. There's a bit of a "homesickness" feeling in there.
Zhuang Yu looked at the complex emotions in Gu Rong's eyes, and for some reason, he thought of Zizi first.
Even though the person standing in front of him was a teenager of the same age as him, he looked at the other person as if he was looking at a grown-up child.
Zhou Yan's shocked voice brought Gu Rong back to his senses. "What? Rong... let me babble a little more. Xiaolu, when did you enter the game? How come I didn't know?"
Gu Rong came back to his senses and glanced at Zhou Yan: "When you don't know."
Zhou Yan: “…”
Rongzai understands nonsense literature.
So, he was the only newbie here? No wonder he looked like cannon fodder; it turned out it wasn't because he was a noob.
Everyone looked at the lake in front of them.
The lake was completely still and eerily smooth, more like a mirror than a lake.
There is open air between Hall 1 and Hall 2, but there is not a trace of wind and the air is stagnant.
Every blade of grass and every tree in this museum is like the water, a stagnant, dead object.
At this moment, something strange happened.
A ghost hand stretched out from the lake, moving as fast as lightning. Before anyone could react, it grabbed Gu Rong's ankle and pulled him into the lake with a "splash".
Zhuang Yu and Zhou Yan stood on Gu Rong's left and right. Without thinking, they both reached out to pull Gu Rong.
But things happened so quickly and suddenly that there was no time to react. They could only watch Gu Rong being dragged into the lake and disappear.
After Gu Rong fell into the lake, the artificial lake that occupied the entire courtyard suddenly disappeared, and was replaced by a stone-paved ground.
In panic, Zhou Yan had already forgotten to cover up. He knelt on the ground and scratched the floor, almost crying: "Rongzi, Rongzi——"
Everyone was shocked.
Fur cub?
This boy is... a kid? Really a kid?!
They had some doubts about whether the boy and the cub had any connection, but it was not until this moment that their thoughts were confirmed. Although it was unbelievable, it also felt reasonable.
It's like, a boy should indeed be a cub, and a cub should look like a boy when he grows up.
A variety of emotions flashed through everyone's eyes: realization, surprise, joy, and finally all turned into worry.
*
Gu Rong fell into the lake. In front of him was the almost transparent water. On the lake were the anxious and worried figures of the people, which were getting farther and farther away and more and more blurred.
His body was wrapped in the thick, damp and cold lake water. Gu Rong did not struggle, but let his body fall, falling into the deepest darkness.
The light gradually faded, and the scene before my eyes was shrouded in black fog.
Gu Rong subconsciously closed his eyes.
When he opened his eyes again, Gu Rong found that he was no longer in the lake, but in an exhibition hall covered with talisman paper.
The difference from before was that the image in front of him seemed to be covered with a blue-gray filter, with a gloomy and ghostly air.
Gu Rong's clothes were still dripping with water, reminding him that falling into the lake just now was not an illusion.
This should be the original version of "Museum of Strange Things".
Gu Rong didn't care about the wetness of his clothes, he took a step forward and walked forward.
The exhibition hall was crisscrossed with various red lines, talismans were posted everywhere, and bells and copper coins were hung. It looked like some kind of formation to suppress evil spirits.
The light was dim. Gu Rong carefully avoided the red lines of the talismans. After walking for a while, a square "Jingguan" appeared in front of him.
Jingguan is an ancient structure that is a high mound where the corpses of enemies are gathered and covered with rammed earth.
The Jingguan in front of him was two meters high and two meters wide, like a compacted haystack, except that the haystack was not made of grass, but of corpses, human corpses.
The bodies were packed so tightly together that there was no space between them. The Jingguan was a cube, but on the five sides of the cube, only the heads could be seen, not the bodies. The bodies were squeezed inside the cube.
The human head was squeezed and deformed, making it difficult to see its original appearance.
Gu Rong was looking at the Jingguan in front of him and was about to leave when one of the heads suddenly opened his eyes and looked straight at him.
This head was also squeezed flat by the heads above, below, and to the left and right, and the eyes were misplaced and not on the same horizontal line. But the eyes still retained their shape and it was obvious that they were a pair of beautiful eyes.
When he saw Gu Rong, a hint of surprise flashed in his eyes, followed by resentment.
Gu Rong felt vaguely that he had seen these eyes somewhere before.
The other party seemed to dislike him very much. Could it be that they had a conflict in the past?
The emotions in the male leader's eyes were extremely complicated, crazy and mad, as if he was schizophrenic.
He looked at Gu Rong for a long time, and said excitedly: "It's you, it's actually you, it's you!!!"
Gu Rong raised his eyebrows slightly: "Have we met before?"
The other person burst into laughter, and his laughter made him look even more like a madman: "You don't remember me? Hahaha, that's right, you definitely won't recognize me in this horrible look now."
A figure flashed through Gu Rong's mind. He looked at the "head" in front of him and said with an indistinct tone, "Oh, I seem to have some impression of it."
The other party: "I'm Mu Xingye. You once used a fishing rod to catch me. Does that make any impression on me? NPC Zai Zai?"
Gu Rong was silent for a moment. The figure in his mind and the "head" in front of him just couldn't match up.
Mu Xingye struggled hard, as if trying to pull himself out of this damned wall of people, but it was obviously useless. He was already embedded inside, his body tangled in a tangle with the other corpses.
Unable to pull it out, Mu Xingye quickly gave up. He had tried countless times.
He was trapped here and couldn't get out. There was no way he would ever get out again.
The head next to him was startled awake. He wanted to scold Mu Xingye, but he was too lazy to scold him after scolding him too much. He sighed and said, "Xiao Ye, stop moving around. Just stay here honestly. Are you still not giving up?"
Another head said: "This is our fate. We must honestly serve as a part of the Jingguan and be an exhibit. People, you must recognize your own fate."
"The previous Xie San was very good. Why is he so noisy every day after you replaced him? Xie San is still the best. He's quiet and quiet..."
Mu Xingye's eyes were red as he yelled at the heads: "Shut up, everyone, shut up!"
Mu Xingye looked at Gu Rong, his eyes full of hostility and malice. He didn't know who the object of his resentment was. It might be everyone, or there might not be a specific person at all.
Because his situation is miserable, all those who are better off than him deserve to die.
"I really didn't expect that Xie Lingjiu was actually Xie San. He was stupid on his own, not me. If I had known that once 'Doomsday Paradise' was released, he would stuff me into the 'Weird Museum' as an exhibit, replacing him, I would have preferred to die in 'Doomsday Paradise'."
Gu Rong still didn't say anything, just looked at Mu Xingye silently.
Gu Rong used to be a NPC named Zaizai. He entered the game as an NPC, and now he is a player.
Mu Xingye used to be a player, but now he has become an NPC - a fixed NPC who can only stay in this copy forever and cannot leave.
Moreover, it can only be in the form of exhibits.
Mu Xingye probably hadn't spoken to a living person in a long time. When he saw Gu Rong, he couldn't help but talk nonstop: "If I had known that you would be more handsome than that idiot Xie Lingjiu when you grow up, I would have changed your skin."
Gu Rong ruthlessly exposed a fact: "Then what are you waiting for now? Don't you want to change?"
Mu Xingye: “…”
Mu Xingye thought of something and became crazy again, with a look of mad joy flashing across his face: "You can't get out anyway. You will be kept in the museum forever and become an exhibit. Hahahahahahaha..."
Gu Rong ignored him and turned to leave the exhibition hall.
Behind him, he could faintly hear the quarrel between Mu Xingye and the other human heads. The other human heads thought Mu Xingye was noisy and asked him to be quiet, but Mu Xingye told them to shut up.
Gu Rong called out 006 in his mind, but got no response. 006 was blocked again.
006 will only be blocked under one circumstance. Thinking of this, Gu Rong's heart began to beat rapidly.
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