Chapter 50

Gu Yi'an really wanted to say no.
But considering she knew this poet was very likely a pseudonym of the god…
Enough, she was indulging the god's twisted amusement.
Gu Yi'an calmly said, "Go ahead."
Tang Jiu was furious and covered her ears.
The student peeked out, looking in Gu Yi'an's direction, feeling nothing but admiration for her.
Gambler truly lived up to her name, even knowing the poet was about to say something bizarre, she could remain unfazed and let him speak.
The poet gazed at Gu Yi'an, his eyes gentle, and said slowly, "I’ve only thought of two lines for now."
Most of Gu Yi'an’s attention was on the display screen.
On the screen, the character had successfully tested out a trap, the ground collapsed, turning into a deep pit.
Gu Yi'an immediately said, "Dancer, you can jump over now."
The poet noticed that Gu Yi'an’s mind wasn’t on him at the moment. He smiled, shifting his gaze to the screen ahead, his voice soft and seemingly affectionate.
"The moon is a reflection in the water, the person is a celestial in the heavens."
The student rubbed the goosebumps on his arms.
He truly didn’t understand how the poet could recite such words with a straight face.
Wait, the student thought back and suddenly realized that the poet’s lines weren’t as strange as he’d imagined.
It wasn’t even a poem, just a phrase.
"Reflection in the water, celestial in the heavens", this wasn’t a confession; it seemed more like praise for Gambler.
A voice filled with apology echoed in the room.
"...Sorry, am I interrupting? Gambler, how should I proceed ahead?"
Gu Yi'an had been pondering the meaning of the poet’s words, but upon hearing the dancer’s voice, her focus immediately returned to the dancer.
On the screen, in front of the character was a stretch of grassland, with no floating stones or obstacles in the air, it looked like it could be crossed directly.
Gu Yi'an said, "Dancer, continue testing as you did before. The next trap will still be on the ground, but it might be different."
"Alright."
The dancer trusted Gu Yi'an completely.
On the screen, the character began testing again.
Tang Jiu noticed the poet had finished reciting and uncovered her ears.
Tang Jiu declared decisively, "It must be some weird, poorly crafted poem."
The student said, "No. The poet’s lines weren’t that strange."
Tang Jiu asked, "What did he say?"
The poet said leisurely, "It wasn’t meant for you."
Tang Jiu retorted, "As if I wanted to hear it."
Gu Yi'an finally noticed the commotion and said, "Both of you, let’s focus on the screen."
Hearing this, Tang Jiu and the poet fell silent simultaneously.
The atmosphere in the room was strange, but Gu Yi'an, sitting between Tang Jiu and the poet, remained completely unaffected. Her gaze returned to the screen.
After a while, Tang Jiu said, "An'an, the dancer is quite suited for this."
She watched the dancer’s cautious testing on the screen and thought she was doing well.
Gu Yi'an replied, "It’s not about suitability. Dancer is doing excellently."
The dancer’s progress to this point on the map was entirely due to her own efforts.
Perhaps because Gu Yi'an had requested quiet, Tang Jiu and the poet complied, refraining from further arguments.
The room fell into silence.
The players watched the screen intently.
Suddenly, a row of sharp spikes shot up from the ground in the screen’s display.
Fortunately, the little character remained vigilant and quickly retracted its testing foot.
Gu Yi'an said, "Alright, Dancer, try jumping over."
The little character on the screen jumped over, smoothly clearing the row of spikes.
As the character landed, two rows of spikes appeared on the path ahead.
It seemed the character would have to jump over them one by one.
Seeing this, Gu Yi'an thought for a moment and said, "Dancer, try testing the spikes like before. Approach them slowly and be ready to pull back at any moment."
The dancer barely said anything else, responding with just a single "Okay."
The little character on the screen slowly approached the new row of spikes.
It got very close, but nothing unusual happened.
The dancer asked, "Gambler, can I jump over now?"
Gu Yi'an felt that this obstacle course game might still have some traps and that jumping directly wasn't safe. She said, "Wait a bit longer. Try extending your leg above the spikes, but remember to pull it back in time."
The little character obediently extended one leg above the spikes.
Suddenly, the row of spikes shot upward.
Luckily, the character was prepared and retracted its leg in time, avoiding any harm.
The student, witnessing this scene, clicked his tongue in amazement. "That's way too tricky, isn't it?"
Tang Jiu glanced in the poet's direction but didn't say anything.
Gu Yi'an paid no attention to the outside commotion. Watching the row of spikes on the screen embed themselves into the rock ceiling, she asked the dancer, "Dancer, look up. Can you see the spikes that shot upward?"
"I can. From my perspective, it's a square. There were many rows of spikes before, and those spikes are now stuck in the ceiling. I can only see their undersides," Dancer explained carefully.
Gu Yi'an was worried the spikes might fall back down.
She said, "Quickly jump over the spot where the spikes were just now."
"Okay."
Dancer followed the instructions without a single question.
On the screen, the little character jumped over the spot where the spikes had been and now faced a new row of spikes.
Seeing this, the student thought of the dancer's character introduction displayed earlier on the screen.
He muttered, "It really is like she can do without thinking. She just follows Gambler's commands completely."
The poet, watching the obstacle course on the screen, seemed to find it dull. His gaze shifted to Gu Yi'an beside him.
Gu Yi'an's attention was entirely focused on the display screen.
She said, "Dancer, please be ready to retreat at any moment."
"Alright."
The character on the screen took one step forward, then retreated one step, followed by two steps forward and another step back.
Watching the character's movements, Gu Yi'an said, "Dancer, you can retreat a bit farther. Ideally, you should cover the width of that row of spikes."
The character on the screen began a cycle of taking a large step forward, then abruptly retreating a large distance.
During this process, the character approached the spikes on the right.
Suddenly, the row of spikes on the ground flipped to the left without warning.
The character, who had been on guard all along, managed to escape in time.
The spikes flipped over and embedded themselves into the ground on the left.
The character remained unharmed.
"That was close," the student, who was merely watching the playthrough, felt the tension.
He said in disbelief, "Gambler, how did you know the spikes would flip over?"
Gu Yi'an replied, "I guessed. If you think from the game designer's perspective, how would you try to trick the player? If it were me, I’d even make the spikes that shoot up into the air fall back down."
Upon hearing this, the student could only mutter, "Are you a devil?"
The dancer's voice echoed in the room, slightly breathless, as she said, "Gambler, I might need to rest for a while."
Gu Yi'an nodded and said, "First, get past this row of spikes, then rest. I want to see what comes next."
The dancer did not refuse Gu Yi'an's request and climbed over the row of spikes that had embedded themselves in the ground.
On the display screen, as the character moved, the map on the screen shifted accordingly.
The players in the room saw a new object appear on the right side of the screen, a flower that resembled a sunflower.
"Is that a man-eating flower?" Gu Yi'an asked.
The dancer heard Gu Yi'an's question and quickly responded, "It looks like a sunflower, but its flower head is larger than a regular sunflower's."
"How large?"
"About a meter wide."
The student remarked, "That’s more than just a little bigger, isn’t it?"
Hearing this, Gu Yi'an asked, "Dancer, do you have any items that allow you to fly for a short period?"
"No. Can I jump over it?"
Gu Yi'an thought for a moment and said, "Dancer, after you rest, start testing whether there are any hidden blocks in the air above you from where you’re standing."
"Alright."
Dancer agreed without hesitation.
Everyone watched as the character on the screen, after resting for a while, began taking small steps forward and then jumping repeatedly in place.
Finally, just as the character was about to approach the unknown flower, it encountered a hidden block in the air.
The student exclaimed in admiration, "Gambler, I feel like with you guiding us, this game has become so simple."
Gu Yi'an didn’t take credit, saying, "I only gave hints. It’s Dancer who has the patience and quick reflexes."
The character on the screen climbed onto the block.
Gu Yi'an said, "Dancer, try to see if there are any more hidden blocks above you. If not, jump over from above to bypass the area where the flower is."
Under Gu Yi'an's direction, the character landed safely on the right side of the flower without encountering any danger.
As the character moved further to the right, a double-door appeared on the display screen.
The student exclaimed excitedly, "The finish line!"
Gu Yi'an didn't share the student's excitement; she calmly said, "Dancer, how are you feeling now?"
"I see the door, and I'm a bit happy, um... don't worry, I still have some sanity left." Dancer's voice remained relatively normal.
"Please keep it up."
Gu Yi'an observed the screen. The only obstacle in front of the character was a short wall, seemingly made of stacked bricks, only half the character's height.
After a moment of thought, she said, "Dancer, whatever you do, don't touch the wall ahead. Walk slowly now. Pay attention to the sky, the ground, and the wall itself. Test it carefully."
As always, the dancer followed Gu Yi'an's instructions without question.
In an instant, as if the character had triggered some mechanism, the short wall suddenly pressed toward the character.
No matter how many calculations were made, no one expected the wall to move.
Gu Yi'an immediately shouted, "Jump!"
Fortunately, Gu Yi'an had warned her earlier to be cautious of the wall, so the dancer had remained vigilant. She jumped immediately, narrowly avoiding the crushing wall.
Still sensing something amiss, Gu Yi'an added, "Jump again!"
As soon as she spoke, the short wall on the screen began to press back.
In a rush, the dancer barely managed to jump aside. Although she avoided the wall, she landed unsteadily this time, falling to the ground and rolling a short distance to the left.
Luckily, she didn't roll into the area where the flower was located.
The short wall stopped moving.
Gu Yi'an asked with concern, "Dancer, are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Gambler, a part of my clothes that touched the wall burned off. That wall is untouchable."
The character on the screen stood up.
Gu Yi'an said, "Dancer, take a rest. Later, when the wall moves toward you, jump forward. As soon as you land, run ahead immediately."
"Okay. How far should I run?"
Gu Yi'an replied, "Estimate the distance from your current position to the endpoint. Run half that distance, don't go too far."
If she ran too far, Gu Yi'an suspected the dancer might step into a trap.
"Okay."
The dancer's catchphrase was almost becoming "Okay."
Tang Jiu praised, "Dancer is doing well. She's been following An'an's instructions all along."
After resting for a while, the character started moving again.
Under the gaze of the players, the character on the screen leaped over the wall, dashed forward a short distance, and abruptly halted. To the left of the character, the low wall stopped moving.
The character had successfully passed through.
The student clapped her hands and said, "Sage, you're amazing."
Gu Yi'an replied, "Dancer, you've worked hard. Watch your step; we can’t let our guard down for the final stretch. We must proceed carefully."
The dancer fully adhered to Gu Yi'an's instructions.
She advanced cautiously, successfully dodging falling rocks from above and spikes emerging from the ground, eventually arriving at the double doors marking the finish line.
Seeing the character finally reach the end, the student remarked, "It wasn’t easy. After countless hardships, we’ve finally made it. Dancer’s reflexes are incredibly fast."
But as Gu Yi'an watched, she felt something was off.
She said, "Dancer, please wait a moment."
The character on the screen stopped in its tracks.
A confused voice echoed in the room, the dancer’s. "Gambler, is there a problem?"
Gu Yi'an turned to the other players in the room and asked, "Don’t you think there’s something strange about this game?"
She continued, "It gave us a thousand lives, but this level only requires a bit of carefulness to clear in one go. Isn’t that too easy?"
Upon hearing this, the student couldn’t help but interject, "Sage, it’s already plenty difficult!
This is only the first level! There might be second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth levels ahead. And how is this easy? It’s really hard! Sage, without your wisdom and Dancer’s cooperation, the rest of us would’ve died many times over."
The student had just witnessed the dancer dodging traps throughout the entire process.
Some traps were truly unexpected. If not for Sage’s foresight and Dancer’s quick reflexes and agility, the dancer would never have reached the finish line.
The student insisted, "Sage, don’t be modest. This game is genuinely difficult."
Gu Yi'an shook her head. "You’re overlooking one thing. We have items. If we factor those in, our reaction speed and jumping ability could be greatly enhanced. Besides, with a few attempts, we could figure out how to bypass those traps."
For instance, if a player accidentally stepped on a fake floor the first time, they’d know to avoid it on the next try.
Games like this are designed to be beaten.
They wouldn’t leave players with no chance to react at all.
As long as players know where the traps are and proceed with caution, they can eventually clear the level.
Just like how the dancer succeeded under her guidance, this challenge tests willpower and patience, not extreme difficulty.
Looking at it this way, the thousand lives the game provided seemed suspicious. Either there’s something wrong with the thousand lives, or there’s something wrong with the finish line.
The doctor remained with his eyes closed, still silent.
Gu Yi'an stood up and turned to Tang Jiu and the poet.
She asked, "Xiao Jiu, what do you think?"
Tang Jiu glanced at the poet and said, "The hardest part of this game lies with him."
The "him" in her words clearly referred to the poet.
At this critical moment, Tang Jiu bringing up the poet again felt unusual.
Gu Yi'an glanced at Tang Jiu, wondering if he had missed some information.
Had Tang Jiu discovered that the poet might be a god, or did Tang Jiu think the poet was a monster in this game?
Gu Yi'an remembered Tang Jiu saying twice that the poet might be a monster in this game.
The student nearby was speechless. Here we go again.
The Reckless Warrior was still targeting the poet.
"Reckless Warrior, could you please stop targeting the poet? We're discussing the game right now."
Tang Jiu said, "I am discussing the game."
The student said, "I'm talking about the game on the screen where the Dancer is still inside."
Tang Jiu looked at the screen and said, "Yes, that's the one. The hardest part of the game is him."
The poet, who had been repeatedly targeted by Tang Jiu, acted as if he hadn't heard her words. He looked at Gu Yi'an, smiled, and said, "I agree with your point."
He was agreeing with Gu Yi'an's view that there was something wrong with the game.
The poet's affirmation made Gu Yi'an realize that his guess was correct.
This challenge game had a problem.
The student hadn't yet noticed the hidden implications in the conversation among the three.
He only heard what the poet had just said.
He felt helpless. The poet was such a lovesick fool, whatever the Gambler said, he thought was right.
He even wrote poems for the Gambler. What a lovesick fool.
Come to think of it, the student pondered and felt that he should also trust the Gambler.
That time he played the game with the Gambler, she was the one who led him to clear it.
If the Gambler thought there was a problem, then there must be a problem.
The student discarded his earlier belief that the game was fine and instantly switched to the idea that the game definitely had a problem.
He observed Gu Yi'an's expression and asked, "Gambler, what should we do next?"
The student's question was exactly what Gu Yi'an was hesitating about.
It wasn't them, the players watching from the room, who needed to take action, but the Dancer currently in the level.
What was at stake next was the Dancer's life or death.
Gu Yi'an's speculation was that if the Dancer entered the door at the finish line, she might encounter an even bigger trap.
Now, the Dancer had two choices: retreat and commit suicide, or enter the door at the finish line to see what the trap was.
It seemed like two choices, but for the players, there was only one option: send a player from the start to the finish, enter the door, and see what would happen.
The doctor, who had been silent all along, said coldly, "Stop wasting time. Let the Dancer enter the finish line."
Gu Yi'an fell silent.
Seeing that Gu Yi'an hadn't given any orders to the Dancer, the student timidly asked, "Is there danger at the finish line?"
Tang Jiu said, "Possibly death."
The student replied, "Huh? But isn't it all death anyway? If we don't dodge those obstacles, we'll die too."
Tang Jiu didn't respond.
Gu Yi'an said, "One is dying and returning to this room. If we enter the finish line, I don't know what will happen."
She paused for a moment and then asked, "Dancer, can you jump over the door and see what's behind it?"
Dancer seemed to have been paying close attention to the room's happenings, as she immediately replied, "I'll try."
Everyone watched as the little figure on the screen began jumping in place.
The figure jumped a few times.
The Dancer's voice echoed in the room, "I just saw what's behind the door. It looks like a map similar to the one we just came from. Let me take another look."
The little figure continued jumping.
"Gambler, I think I saw another door, exactly like this finish line door."
Gu Yi'an said, "Dancer, that's enough. No need to jump over the door. Take out your props and prepare for battle."
The student, confused by the Dancer's words, asked, 'Gambler, does that mean the door the Dancer just saw isn't the real finish line?" Do we need to jump over it to reach the true finish line?"
Gu Yi'an shook her head and said, "What if it's a looping map? Jump over the door, walk to the new door, only to find yet another door behind it, and it goes on infinitely. In the end, all we can do is enter the door."
The student scratched his head and said, "But, Gambler, how do we know there's another door behind the new one without trying?" Maybe there's nothing behind the new door, and it's the real end point, not the infinite loop you suspect.
I'm just saying, I trust Gambler," the student added.
Gu Yi'an said, "That is a possibility. So, let's take a gamble. Bet that it is an infinite loop map. We either die in the traps or enter the finish line."
She asked, "Dancer, do you choose to enter the finish line?"
The Dancer replied, "I'll follow your lead, Gambler."
Gu Yi'an turned to the other players in the room and said, 'Everyone, take out your props.'"
Her gaze fell on the Poet, who was currently in the role of a novice player.
Gu Yi'an said, "As for the Poet, if anything happens, keep an eye out and hide behind the experienced players."
The Poet's eyes seemed to sparkle as he smiled and said, "Thank you for your concern, Gambler."
Gu Yi'an held her own prop in hand and looked at the screen, saying, 'Dancer, you can choose a time to enter the finish line now.'"
"Alright. I'll go in now."
The players in the room watched as the little figure on the screen pushed open the double doors.
In that instant, the little figure on the screen suddenly enlarged, its face taking up the entire screen, and its features began to rapidly distort, transforming into the face of a black, grotesquely deformed monster!
The monster grinned ferociously, its head leaning forward and protruding out of the screen.
The student was stunned, "It's coming out!"
"Help!"
The monster's head extended into the room where the players were!
Gu Yi'an's small coffin slipped from her hand.
But someone was faster than Gu Yi'an.
The Doctor's scalpel sliced through the monster's head.
In that instant, the monster's head dissolved into black mist, vanishing into the air in the blink of an eye.
The student's scream abruptly cut off. "Huh? It died just like that?"
The student, who had expected an intense battle, felt an indescribable sensation upon seeing the monster eliminated so swiftly.
Was this monster really that weak?
He looked at the doctor, who had somehow appeared by the display screen, and said with admiration, "Doctor, you're amazing."
In Gu Yi'an's hand, the small coffin she had thrown earlier spun back into her grasp.
The display screen from which the monster had crawled was still lit, showing the character selection interface.
The difference this time was that there were only five characters to choose from, and the red number in the upper right corner of the screen had changed.
"Eight-six-seven?" Gu Yi'an read the three digits aloud.
Hearing her voice, the student shifted his attention and said, "What does that number actually mean?"
He had initially thought it represented the total number of times they could die.
But now it seemed clear that the number wasn't related to their death count.
"It's probably the health points of the ghost we just encountered," Gu Yi'an speculated.
"Huh?" The student looked puzzled, his expression turning inquisitive as he stared at Gu Yi'an.
"I'm just guessing; I'm not sure if it's correct," Gu Yi'an explained. "The little figure we see on the display screen isn't actually the real dancer."
"But doesn't every move of the little figure mirror the dancer's actions?"
"That's the ghost's disguise. It makes us believe that we're watching the real-time gameplay of the player in a two-dimensional interface. But in reality, it's not, the little figure is the ghost in disguise. Every time the player dies in the game, the ghost also 'dies' once in the two-dimensional display we see. When we clear a level, the ghost gets a chance to emerge from the display screen into our room and harm us."
At this point, Gu Yi'an glanced at the doctor and added, "Thanks to the doctor dealing damage to it in time, the ghost was forced back after only partially emerging. That's why the number changed to eight-six-seven."
The doctor remained cold and silent.
After listening, the student asked, "Then what about the dancer who reached the endpoint? Is she gone?"
According to the Gambler's speculation, it was the dancer entering the endpoint in the game that allowed the ghost to enter their room.
So where did the dancer go?
Did she die in the game?
"She probably cleared the level and moved on to another place. The trap at the endpoint wasn't meant for the player in the game but for us, the ones watching the player's progress from the room," Gu Yi'an concluded.
The student imagined the scene.
If it weren't for Sage's reminder, everyone would have been celebrating their companion entering the finish line door when suddenly the character on the screen turned into a monster and crawled out of the display.
Most likely, no one would have reacted immediately. By the time the monster emerged, they might have scrambled to use items against it. Whether they could even pull out the right item in time was another question.
Once the student grasped this, he immediately flattered Gu Yi'an, saying, "Sage, you're so brilliant. Thank goodness you realized there was a trap at the finish line."
Gu Yi'an couldn't stand his empty praise and said, "Call me Gambler."
"Gambler, you're so clever," the student continued to compliment.
Gu Yi'an felt helpless. It wasn't that she was particularly smart.
Aside from the student, all the other players had noticed the issue.
The Poet and Tang Jiu, for instance, had long since figured out the nature of the game on the screen and paid it no mind.
The Doctor's earlier remarks also indicated he had some suspicions about the game and knew there was a trap at the finish line.
Gu Yi'an was just the one who voiced it.
Even the Dancer, who seemed to act without much thought and simply followed Gu Yi'an's instructions, had likely figured it out too.
She was clever; otherwise, she wouldn't have navigated those traps so smoothly under Gu Yi'an's guidance.
Gu Yi'an's reminders were one thing, but it was the Dancer herself who executed them.
Seeing Gu Yi'an's indifferent expression, the student realized she didn't want any more compliments.
He changed the subject and asked, "Sage... uh, Gambler, what do we do next? Does everyone have to go through the finish line?"
"That seems to be the case for now. Once we all make it through, we might be able to reunite with Dancer."
The student voiced his confusion, "Huh? We still need to reunite with the Dancer? Are there more levels?"
Gu Yi'an looked at him with a hint of exasperation. Why did this guy have so many questions?
Well, his character title was "Student," after all.
Gu Yi'an explained, "Because this is the first level. If I'm not mistaken, there will be more levels after this. Didn't you earlier guess there would be second, third, and fourth levels too?"
The student replied, "I thought they'd be similar to this one, like one person goes in to play, and we sit here watching them tackle a new map. I didn't realize everyone has to go through it and then move on to a new level in a different place."
He asked, "Should we start now?"
Gu Yi'an said, "Let's wait a bit. Take a break."
Gu Yi'an returned to her seat and looked at Tang Jiu.
Tang Jiu sat idly in her chair, looking as if she were about to fall asleep.
Gu Yi'an called out, "Xiao Jiu."
Tang Jiu snapped awake instantly and turned to Gu Yi'an.
Gu Yi'an asked, "Xiao Jiu, do you think this challenge game is fake?"
The room was small, so the student easily overheard Gu Yi'an's question. He was stunned, feeling as though he had stumbled upon some major secret.
Hearing Gu Yi'an's words, Tang Jiu nodded.
She didn't hide anything from Gu Yi'an and directly pointed to the Poet sitting on Gu Yi'an's other side.
"His flaws are too obvious. Even his title has four characters, Wandering Poet. Does he think I'm blind?"
The Poet heard Tang Jiu's remark but remained seated, his expression as gentle as ever, unaffected by her words.
The student realized that this time, the conflict between the Poet and Tang Jiu was definitely not the emotional issue he had speculated about.
He felt somewhat bewildered. The Gambler said the game was fake, the Reckless Warrior said the Poet had flaws, how could these two statements be connected to guess whether they were referring to the same thing?
The student could only watch silently. The Doctor observed coldly from the sidelines.
Tang Jiu stood up and walked over to the Poet, looking down at him. "You're the ghost in this round of the game, aren't you?"
Her tone was certain.
Gu Yi'an had been speculating that the Poet was a disguise of the God, thinking that the God had deliberately assigned himself the identity of a novice player this time, so she hadn't paid much attention to the Poet.
But judging by Tang Jiu's attitude, she was convinced that the Poet was a ghost who had infiltrated the game.
How many layers of identity had the God assigned to himself?
The Doctor's icy gaze swept over the Poet before shifting away.
The Poet sighed softly, as if facing an unreasonable person, and said helplessly, "Reckless Warrior, if you insist on thinking that way, there's nothing I can do. It's all up to you. Why should we waste time suspecting our teammates?"
Tang Jiu laughed at his words.
She said, "You didn’t even put effort into your disguise, and now you think I’m wronging you?"
"Look at the character description you gave yourself, a love-struck fool. It’s completely out of place compared to the rest of us."
Tang Jiu listed them off: "Me, the Reckless Warrior, simple, just charge ahead. An'an, the Gambler, likes to take risks. The Student, relies on others to carry him, no problem. The Doctor performs craniotomies, that’s his skill. The Dancer follows orders, also fine. What’s your skill? Specializing in pestering people to fall in love? What kind of skill and way to clear the game is that?"
"More importantly," Tang Jiu continued, looking at the Poet with confusion.
"All our titles are two characters long. Yours alone has four. Just 'Poet' would’ve been enough, but you had to add 'Wandering Poet.' Don’t you think the identity you’ve given yourself is highly suspicious?"
Gu Yi'an glanced at the Poet’s profile.
His appearance this time was also handsome and gentle, with a distinct facial contour.
The Student, standing nearby, said hesitantly, "Reckless Warrior, just because of this character description, you suspect Poet?"
Tang Jiu rolled her eyes. "With such an obvious flaw, who else should I suspect?"
The Student finally understood why the Reckless Warrior had been arguing with the Poet all along.
But he still didn’t get it. "But... there’s no evidence to prove that Poet is a ghost, is there?"
Tang Jiu took out her prop, a somewhat aged-looking longsword, in front of everyone and said with a bright smile, 'We’ll know if we fight, won’t we?""
The student was dumbfounded. "You're killing someone."
"Not necessarily," Tang Jiu said.
Gu Yi'an exclaimed, "Xiao Jiu!"
Her attempt to stop it was too late. Tang Jiu thrust her sword forward, clean, decisive, and without hesitation.
The student stared in shock.
The reckless lady was truly reckless.
The poet had been sitting in his seat, not far from Tang Jiu. At least, the tip of Tang Jiu's long sword now hovered above the chair, while the poet himself had vanished from his seat.
Tang Jiu showed no surprise at this scene. "See? This is the evidence. Could a novice player pull this off?"
Gu Yi'an noticed a figure had appeared in Tang Jiu's original spot. She looked over and saw the poet, his expression still gentle.
The poet seemed oblivious to the other players' gazes.
His eyes reflected only Gu Yi'an.
In his gaze, she could see herself, cold and detached.
Was she really that indifferent?
The poet smiled, his voice tender as if whispering sweet nothings. "I look forward to meeting you again."
His figure vanished from the room.
The student glanced at Tang Jiu, who was wiping her sword, then at Gu Yi'an, who was calmly thinking, and finally at the doctor, who remained cold and silent.
"Um... will the poet reappear? Do we have to kill him to clear the level?"
"Why did the poet sneak in? I feel like whether he's here or not makes no difference to us."
The student's mind was filled with endless questions.
Tang Jiu shot him a glance. "Because he's a love-struck fool."
"Isn't that the identity he gave himself?"
"Exactly. A love-struck wandering poet sneaks in to watch us play the game... He's looking for a companion. He's been wandering for too long and wants to find someone."
Tang Jiu glanced at Gu Yi'an but didn't continue. Instead, she said, "We've already driven the poet away. There are no ghosts or monsters here, just us. Let's focus on clearing the level and see what's next. Even though this place is fake, our only way forward for now is to keep going."
The student asked, "...Did I miss something? How is this place fake? What do you mean by 'this place'?"
Tang Jiu looked at the student, her patience wearing thin. She put away her prop and sat in the poet's former seat.
Gu Yi'an felt the student's pleading gaze and decided to explain. "The place we're in now is false."
"You can think of it this way: our current state of existence isn't real life, we're just a string of data."
"Huh?"
The student couldn't comprehend it.
Weren't they just sitting in a room watching others clear levels?
Good grief, suddenly this world had turned into a digital one.
Gu Yi'an continued, "Because of the way Xiao Jiu, the doctor, and the dancer disappeared, they vanished into thin air."
"What's the issue with that?" The student had noticed that too and assumed it was a mystical world, one where many things defied common sense.
Gu Yi'an said, "And the voices, the sounds they heard from us and the sounds we heard from them, were everywhere."
The student tentatively asked, "Sage, are you saying that the only way to explain the doctor and the reckless lady's disappearance and the omnipresent voices is by assuming we're in a data world and we're just a string of data?"
The student once again addressed Gu Yi'an as the Sage.
Gu Yi'an said, "Actually, I drew inspiration from the poet's poem."
"Wasn't that a compliment to you, Sage?" a student asked curiously.
Gu Yi'an found it difficult to answer.
Tang Jiu curled her lips and said, "That line was actually the hint given by that lovesick poet to the players. He's so lovesick that he only gives real hints to those he values. What he said earlier about patience was just a lie."
Gu Yi'an explained, "The moon in the water and the celestial being in the sky, the former is merely a reflection, an illusion, while the latter is a figment of people's imagination, as there are no beings in the sky. Both are false. I suspect the place we are in now is also an illusion."
Gu Yi'an glanced at Tang Jiu, curious to know what had led her to conclude that this world was fake as well.
Tang Jiu understood her look and coughed lightly before saying, "I just felt the poet was suspicious, so I kept probing him. Besides, the way I died and was revived inside felt too much like a game. Of course, we are already playing a game of the gods. I guessed that we might just be a set of data in a game because we can respawn infinitely."
The student listened in confusion, half-believing and half-doubting, and asked, "So, if I know this world is fake, what next? What do we do? Escape the game and go to the real world?"
"Continue playing the game."
Gu Yi'an said, "We have no choice but to keep playing and see what the person behind all this wants us to do."
"But... then knowing or not knowing doesn't make much of a difference."
After muttering this, the student received a sidelong glance from Tang Jiu.
"How is it no difference? Knowing the truth of the world allows you to fight back later. You'll see how useful it is in the next level. I bet we'll run into that lovesick poet again soon. When we meet next, he'll probably cling to..."
Tang Jiu trailed off.
The student didn't pay it much mind and looked at the display screen, asking, "So, who among us will enter the game first? If we go one by one, won't it take a long time for all of us to reunite with Dancer?"
Gu Yi'an thought for a moment and said, "It doesn't have to be that complicated."
The student looked at her, his eyes sparkling, he knew Sage would have a solution.
Gu Yi'an said, "The ghost's current health points are 867. We can have one player clear the level first, reach the end, and release the ghost from the display. Then, we drag that ghost out and kill it."
"Drag it out and kill it?"
At this point, who is human, and who is the ghost?
The student pondered these words, and the look he gave Gu Yi'an instantly changed.
Why did he feel that Sage was even more reckless than the brute?
Tang Jiu strongly agreed with Gu Yi'an's suggestion. "As expected, we're friends. This proposal suits my taste perfectly."
The doctor remained silent, seemingly giving his tacit approval.
The student still had doubts. "Your idea is that after killing the ghost, everyone passes the level together. But what if we kill the ghost and still don't pass?"
"Let's take a gamble," Gu Yi'an said calmly.
After all, whenever a player reached the end inside the game, the ghost would appear. They might as well try killing it first.
And so, the matter was decided.
The next person to enter the game was the doctor.
It wasn't that the student, Tang Jiu, or Gu Yi'an were unwilling to go, it was that the doctor didn't trust the three of them to succeed.
A brute, a gambler, and a student, the three of them seemed utterly unreliable. The doctor chose to go himself.
Since the dancer had already cleared the level successfully, and the doctor had watched part of the process himself, plus with the guidance from Gu Yi'an and the others in the room, he successfully reached the end.
In the room, Gu Yi'an and the others watched as the tiny figure on the screen pushed open the door at the finish line.
In that instant, the previous scene repeated itself, the tiny figure rapidly swelled, transforming into an ugly ghostly face.
This time, the ghostly face held a trace of resentment in its eyes as it looked at the players outside the screen.
It burst out of the screen abruptly.