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Chapter 32: You are a good kid.
After parting ways with Nan Shan, An Wujiu has been feeling strange all along.
In this round of the game, there were no additional tasks other than leaving the enclosed containment center, and there were no settings to add distrust among players.
It seemed that the hidden task behind it was just to figure out what exactly this containment center was for and what the children in the center had turned into.
The scale of this containment center was larger than he imagined. According to the evacuation map, the area of this floor was already considerable. If that American was truly just a philanthropist, his kindness was beyond doubt. But what was strange was why this building was shaped like a pagoda.
There must be some special meaning behind it.
To better understand the orientation, An Wujiu and Shen Ti made small markings at the corners of the corridor and continued forward.
They did not encounter anyone along the way.
Most surprisingly, after passing through four corners and returning to the first marked spot, the markings disappeared.
Moving on, the previously made four marks were all gone.
An Wujiu and Shen Ti’s eyes met under the lights, and there was a silent understanding.
“We seem to be isolated from others by some force,” An Wujiu said calmly.
Shen Ti spread his hands, “So, there’s something supernatural in this game.”
“Perhaps.” An Wujiu naturally had a resistance to supernatural things, and he couldn’t explain why. But if it really appeared in the game, it would be troublesome.
“I’m worried about Yirou. It seems like she’s the only one who is alone.”
He thought Shen Ti would acknowledge or show empathy for his concern, but to his surprise, Shen Ti pointed out the fact, “She has a surname.”
Unable to understand, An Wujiu looked at him with a puzzled expression.
Arms crossed, Shen Ti continued to emphasize, “Her surname is Zhong, Zhong Yirou.”
An Wujiu couldn’t comprehend, “For people with good relationships, it’s acceptable to omit the surname in addressing them.”
“Then you can try omitting mine.” Suddenly, Shen Ti said.
After hearing this, An Wujiu looked at him, confused.
He made a pitiful expression, pouting his mouth, “Is our relationship bad? Just because I dueled with you before, you’re not willing to forgive me now?”
If it was someone else, like Wu You, they might have just turned around and walked away.
But surprisingly, An Wujiu fell for it and outright denied it with a sincere expression.
“No, I’ve never held a grudge. Our relationship is, of course, fine.”
“Then try calling me without the surname.”
An Wujiu froze in place, as if he had swallowed three eggs in one breath, and they were stuck in his throat, unable to go up or down.
“T-Ti…”
In the end, he shook his head and said, “Your name sounds strange when said alone. It’s like being a guest at a stranger’s house and answering the question, ‘coffee or tea.'”
A disappointed expression appeared on Shen Ti’s face.
But after thinking for a moment, this might be one of An Wujiu’s tricks. For example, he omitted surnames when addressing everyone but himself, making him special.
After all, he was quite unique. Some people repeating others’ names could be annoying, but some could pronounce a person’s name in a way that felt wonderful, like a butterfly ribbon attached to a gift.
“Okay, An Wujiu.”
At this moment, An Wujiu has already forgotten their previous discussion. His fingers were placed on his earlobes, and his eyebrows furrowed.
“What’s wrong?” Shen Ti asked. But An Wujiu quickly made a gesture for him to be silent.
“Yirou, I just found out that there’s a device with an intercom function installed in our right ears…”
Shen Ti noticed the black dot on An Wujiu’s earlobe. His ears were like a snowy white shell, making anything placed on them very clear.
Could this be what made him think of Zhong Yirou?
Shen Ti also felt his own ear, and indeed, there was something.
At that moment, the signal An Wujiu received seemed to have stopped. He called Zhong Yirou’s name several times and then gave up.
“The signal suddenly cut off.” An Wujiu looked at Shen Ti, then suddenly saw a huge, slime-covered ball from behind him. It was not entirely a ball because countless hands extended from the ugly and disgusting slime.
Childish little hands.
In that instant, An Wujiu felt a tremendous shock, but the next second, he immediately regained his composure, grabbing Shen Ti’s arm and pulling him over fiercely. “Be careful!”
The next second, the slime-covered ball-shaped monster disappeared without a trace.
An Wujiu was surprised. Was it his illusion? But it felt so real; he even smelled the strong odor of decay.
Suddenly, a pair of arms hugged him. An Wujiu was stunned, looked up very cautiously, and found that he and Shen Ti were too close, so close that if he lifted his head, his lips would almost touch the edge of Shen Ti’s lower lip.
“What are you doing?” An Wujiu’s tone unexpectedly sounded a bit flustered, an emotion he hadn’t experienced even when on the verge of death.
Shen Ti also released the arms wrapped around An Wujiu’s back.
His expression was very innocent, like that of a child who had just learned to hug.
“It’s because you pulled me.” He preemptively refuted and then put both hands behind his back. “I just felt that this distance was suitable for… hugging.”
He was truly a strange person.
An Wujiu turned around, “It’s because I just saw something very dangerous, right behind you.”
After explaining, An Wujiu left Shen Ti alone and took a few steps forward. He found that his heartbeat had inexplicably increased a lot.
Then, as expected, the pain in his heart struck again.
He clutched his chest and stopped there.
“What dangerous thing? It’s not someone trying to kill me, is it?” Shen Ti deliberately adopted a tone of feigned shock, caught up with An Wujiu, and stuck close to him. “You have to protect me.”
After he approached, An Wujiu was in so much pain that he could barely stand, but he pretended everything was fine and lowered his hand slowly, walking forward at a slow pace.
“It should be an illusion…”
“We might be inside an illusion.”
Just as he finished speaking, a nine-square grid appeared out of thin air on the ground in front of them, with numbers appearing one by one.
But soon, the nine-square grid disappeared again.
“Did you see that?” This time, An Wujiu confirmed with Shen Ti.
“Yeah, a nine-square grid.”
Indeed, it wasn’t his imagination.
An Wujiu stood still, staring at the connection line between the wall and the floor.
In this perpetually looping corridor, if it were a visual illusion similar to the Penrose stairs, then the ground would at least have a certain degree of slope and couldn’t be horizontal.
Besides, they hadn’t encountered anyone so far…
In a daze, An Wujiu heard the sound of a blunt weapon hitting something, but it was distant, more like an auditory hallucination.
“Hey? Hey…”
Shen Ti seemed to receive a message from someone, saying “hey,” then “hello,” and even saying “moshi moshi” in Japanese.
“Who?” An Wujiu approached.
“Ah?” Shen Ti shrugged. “Your Wujiu-ge is right next to me… I won’t be your messenger, even if you beg me… Ha, am I not mature enough? I’m the most mature, reliable, and tallest adult male here, and you’re just an underage kid…”
An Wujiu held his forehead, “Stop arguing.”
Shen Ti became a bit more honest, “Okay, I’ll be your messenger this time.”
Then he quieted down, listened for a few moments, and turned into a poker face, saying to An Wujiu, “Wujiu-ge, Nan Shan and I encountered a maze, then he used the Bagua Nine Palace to solve it, and we found the location of E07’s work.”
It was similar to what they know.
Following that, Shen Ti continued to listen, but his expression subtly changed.
Seeing this, An Wujiu also knew that they must have discovered something.
After listening, Shen Ti told An Wujiu, “Nan Shan is a special worker.”
“That’s right.” An Wujiu nodded. “His work clothes are different, and he wears a mask.” After saying this, he seemed to have some ominous speculation himself.
Shen Ti informed him, “He’s a cremator.”
“In the building where he works, there’s a very large incinerator, and inside, there are still warm bone fragments. The bones are fine, belonging to children. We also found a work log, which records information about the incinerated ones. No names, but judging from height and weight, they’re all small.”
While saying this, Shen Ti’s tone was unnaturally calm, but An Wujiu was frozen in place, his mind immediately conjuring the image of the ball covered with small hands and feet from earlier. For a moment, he even felt the urge to vomit.
Suppressing the strong nausea, he looked up and asked, “How many?”
Shen Ti relayed his question.
They received a result that, while not very clear, was still horrifying.
“A lot.”
In An Wujiu’s heart, this containment center had now become a hell on earth.
Why had so many children died here, quietly incinerated?
What had happened?
At this moment, a new nursery rhyme echoed in the corridor.
“Picking up little stones, drawing squares on the ground, big squares, small squares, drawing the squares, and jumping in the house…”
The crisp voice of a child appeared, and at the same moment, a new grid appeared on the ground in front of An Wujiu and Shen Ti. Unlike the previous nine-square grid, this one seemed to be an outdoor game that children from a certain era liked to play.
The grid connected along a vertical direction, labeled with numbers 1 to 9. The grid with the number 4 was placed horizontally next to the one with the number 5, and the one with the number 7 was similarly next to the one with the number 8. All the other grids stood alone, falling in line along a straight line.
Behind the grid labeled 9, there was a final grid sparkling with golden light.
Inside it was a word—Heaven.
As the voice continued to sing, An Wujiu suddenly felt a gust of wind behind him. When he turned around, he found an extravagant bronze relief gate had appeared out of nowhere, adorned with vivid cherubs.
An Wujiu walked toward the gate, but the rear door handle couldn’t be opened. Instead, many red warning messages popped up in front of the gate.
[！Please do not be a bad kid！Please do not be a bad kid！Please do not be a bad kid！Please do not be a bad kid]
Four identical English sentences, warning him to be a good kid.
Strangely, beneath this warning, there was an empty input box. An Wujiu clicked on it and found that he could input characters.
When he tried typing, a prompt appeared in front of him.
【You only have one chance.】
This was too risky.
“Are we supposed to play this game?”
Hearing Shen Ti’s voice, An Wujiu turned around to find him already standing on the starting grid labeled with the number 1.
“It might be a trap.” After saying this, An Wujiu asked him, “Can you play this game?”
Shen Ti didn’t know how; he couldn’t do many things. But after observing the ground for a moment, there were individual number grids as well as two side-by-side ones. They had to go from the starting point to the endpoint.
“I guess we just have to walk or jump over them. Use one foot for a single grid and both feet for two.”
An Wujiu doubted that Shen Ti was just pretending not to know.
“Be careful.”
Shen Ti nodded and began his game.
A tall figure of 1.9 meters hopping on one foot within the small squares looked a bit comical to An Wujiu.
But this amusement didn’t last long because Shen Ti suddenly failed.
He landed steadily on both feet, stepping on the squares with numbers 4 and 5. However, when he attempted to jump on the number 6 with one foot again, it seemed like an invisible wall appeared out of thin air, blocking his jump. As a result, Shen Ti lost balance and exited the “house.”
Above this house, a red exclamation mark appeared, the nursery rhyme stopped, and an alarm sounded.
“Are you okay?”
An Wujiu was about to check on him when he noticed that Shen Ti’s chest was covered in blood and the front of his shirt was almost entirely stained red.
“What happened?” An Wujiu grabbed Shen Ti’s arm, inspecting his chest.
Strangely, Shen Ti was completely uninjured.
Where did this blood come from?
“I’m fine. It’s not my blood.” Shen Ti squeezed An Wujiu’s hand. “Step back a bit.”
The alarm ceased, and the naive and crisp child’s voice reappeared, repeating the nursery rhyme about jumping in the house.
“Big squares, small squares, drawing the squares and jumping in the house…”
“Single square, jump with one foot; double square, jump with both feet; take a break and catch your breath in case you fall.”
Shen Ti knew this was a new opportunity.
He started again from the beginning, following the sequence. Shen Ti, like those children, had a rapid learning ability. Give him negative feedback, a threat, or a scare, and he will know what to do and what not to do after repeating it a few times.
This was punishment education.
This time, with both feet on squares 4 and 5, Shen Ti reached out and touched above 6, discovering an entirely solid wall of air, even scalding hot.
He withdrew his hand. “Can’t pass through after 6.”
An Wujiu nodded, remembering that number.
He stood in place and suddenly noticed that the nursery rhyme had a continuation.
“If the road is blocked, don’t be discouraged; go back to the start and jump. Little friends, remember well; don’t run away when facing difficulties.”
“It means you should go back.” An Wujiu said, “Jump back.”
Shen Ti understood and jumped back to the first square. An animation of a thumbs-up immediately appeared above the “house,” along with an extremely excited encouragement: “You’re such a good kid!”
Following that, the nursery rhyme started again. Shen Ti moved forward once more, carefully reaching out when he approached 6. As expected, the invisible wall blocking him disappeared, but he remained cautious, extending his hand each time he moved forward.
In the moment when he reached from 8 to 9, the hand he extended came back covered in blood, forming a line of blood droplets flowing down.
“This time it’s 9.”
6 and 9, An Wujiu silently noted.
This might be a clue.
As Shen Ti retraced his steps, the small house once again displayed a thumbs-up to encourage him.
What a good kid.
During the third attempt, the forced stopping point once again landed on 6.
Was it a loop?
“Try again.” An Wujiu suggested.
Shen Ti tried again, but this time, from the moment he stepped on the square marked with 1, he suddenly felt a sharp pain, standing there as if his internal organs were being corroded and melted.
“What’s wrong?” An Wujiu rushed over as he saw Shen Ti squatting down. Shen Ti also retreated, and just with that movement, the intense pain from the inside out instantly disappeared.
As An Wujiu watched him stand up, when he turned around, blood overflowed from the corners of his mouth.
Even though he knew it wasn’t Shen Ti’s blood, his heart skipped a beat.
Shen Ti felt it too; he wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand and sleeve, reciting several numbers to An Wujiu, “6, 9, 6, 1. The last time to 1 means we can’t continue.”
The squares on the ground behind them suddenly disappeared, along with the final sentence.
“You’re such a good kid.”
An Wujiu silently repeated this sentence in his mind, suddenly feeling that something was wrong.
The red warning on the door to paradise mentioned being a good kid.
He pulled Shen Ti to the front of the gate, staring at the four lines of English characters, “We need to fill in a result.”
The vivid crimson letters seemed to jump out, like a blood-soaked punishment.
Four lines of warnings.
Four numbers.
“I got it.” / “It’s some kind of code.”
Both of them spoke at the same time, their voices overlapping.
They exchanged another glance, and An Wujiu nodded affirmatively, “There’s a type of cipher that specifically requires a lengthy text as the plaintext.”
“Bifid cipher,” Shen Ti added, but he was somewhat skeptical about how he knew these things. He hadn’t formally received education in his memory, yet his cognitive range was unusually extensive.
An Wujiu responded with a thoughtful “Hmm” and continued, “The sixth letter in the first line…” He hesitated slightly at the beginning of the exclamation point, but after quickly going through possible answers twice, An Wujiu confirmed, “Counting the exclamation point, the sixth letter in the first line is S, and the ninth character in the second line is O.”1T/N: [!(1) Pleas(6)e do(9) not be a bad kid!] S is at 6th and O is at 9th position, including the ! mark.
Shen Ti stared at the red warning, “The third is S, and the fourth is an exclamation point.”
【SOS!】
An Wujiu inputted this result with mixed emotions and clicked confirm.
He received feedback, addressed as “little bird,” informing him:
【You have no right to choose.】
In a dull sound, the magnificent gate, seemingly leading to heaven, slowly opened.
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mmm maybe Shen Ti also got his memory tampered with?