Chapter 385: Got a Name
Professor Song straightened up from a pile of documents, removing his glasses. He pointed to the chairs across the desk and said, “Have a seat.”
Bai Youwei, Zhu Shu, Su Man, and Yu Yaqing sat down one after another.
The old professor handed out a prepared form to each of them. His voice was rough and solemn:
“In order to facilitate our communication and avoid possible omissions, I have prepared these forms. The questions I need answers to are basically covered here I hope that you can fill them out as comprehensively and accurately as possible.”
Each of them got a form, thick as a textbook, which caught them by surprise.
Even if they filled it out all day, it might not be enough?
Then, they heard Professor Song say, “Here are the forms for other games. You can refer to them, consider it as a token of appreciation from the research group.”
Bai Youwei turned to the back, and found that what they actually had to fill out was only on the first two pages, the rest was information on other games.
—Apart from game number 21, other games numbered from 1 to 23, systematically arranged. These pieces of information were collected by the members of the organization, some games had only one page of information, some had five to six pages.
Bai Youwei briefly flipped through them and thought that this professor was quite efficient.
“You can start filling out the forms now,” Song Mingchuan said hoarsely, “If you are unclear about anything, feel free to ask me at any time.”
They each picked up a pen from the table and began to fill out the forms.
The first question was “Theme of the game”.
This was easy. Bai Youwei wrote, “The Last Bride”.
The second question was “Characteristics of the Inspector”.
Bai Youwei frowned and started writing, “Adult male appearance, blond hair, blue eyes, lanky body resembling noodles, and exquisitely dressed…”
As she wrote, she suddenly paused, turned over to the back of the form.
As expected, she found a similar description, and at the front of the description, there was a note: Cartoon Man.
Bai Youwei was slightly surprised, “Is this the Inspector’s name?”
Professor Song raised his head and said expressionlessly, “Inspectors have no names, no gender, no age. The notes are the most common terms that players refer to them by, as a means of differentiation. We internally adopted the same terminology.”
He spoke, then glanced at the form Bai Youwei was holding, and added, “Sometimes, one Inspector may have more than one name. For example, the Cartoon Man is also called Noodle Man or Long-legged Mannequin. When recording, we choose the most commonly used name.”
Bai Youwei flipped through the pages, finding records of basically every Inspector she had encountered.
The Ball had the most consistent name, called either “Ball” or “Round Ball” or “Gravity Ball,” always including the word ‘ball’;
The Rabbit-headed Man had the names “Gentleman with a Rabbit Head” or “Magician”;
The Grey-robed Old Man had the most names – “Hurricane Monster,” “Faceless Monster,” “Wind-robed Old Man,” “Cloak Man,” “Mushroom Cloak”…
When Bai Youwei saw “Mushroom Cloak,” the corners of her mouth twitched.
Recalling the sight of that old man, standing still in his cloak, he did resemble a mushroom.
Beyond the four Inspectors she recognized, she also saw unfamiliar names like “Puppet Master,” “Ghost Fire,” and so on.
It seemed there were more than four Inspectors. She just wondered how they divided their work, whether there was a hierarchy among them, and whether they would cooperate or compete with each other?
The professor was waiting for them to fill out the forms, so her questions had to be pushed aside for now.
Bai Youwei picked up her pen and began to write. Knowing that piles of game information were waiting for them, she wrote in great detail. There was a subconscious give-and-take at play, from which she was not exempt.
She wrote a lot, then glanced at Su Man’s form and couldn’t help but stare.