"The little girl picking mushrooms~"
"Carrying a basket of bones~"
The eerie music went round and round, and Su Ming’an held the extremely still body in his arms, head bowed, without speaking.
The little girl seemed even happier, spinning in place, "wah la wah la," thoroughly enjoying the screams and the zombies’ roars coming from outside the door and windows.
Scratching sounds came from the door, the claw marks failing to leave significant traces on the roller shutter. The zombies couldn’t break in here; at least for now, this was the safest place.
As the number of deaths rose dramatically, more people flocked to the live stream. Even so, the barrage of comments that had been constantly streaming had eerily stopped. When they witnessed the girl’s head suddenly explode, all the viewers fell into silence.
They seemed to sense as well, that madness, both overt and subtle, that was beginning to sweep through the air quietly.
"Oh, Big Brother, you guessed wrong, huh?" The little girl peeked at Su Ming’an, unable to see his face directly because of her height, she even hopped forward a few steps to be below him.
She saw a pair of calm, unrippled eyes.
Su Ming’an quietly looked at her, not speaking.
"Eh? You’re not mad? I thought Big Brother would be so angry he’d choke me to death," Duoduo pretended to be scared, her eyes wide open. If one ignored the large patches of black, she looked like an innocent little girl on the verge of tears.
"I wouldn’t be angry at a victim," Su Ming’an said.
"Hmm, a victim? But Big Brother, even though you got it wrong, you haven’t changed your mind?"
"Logically speaking, I indeed lost," Su Ming’an said, "With ten days left until the end of the apocalypse, I triggered the final question ahead of time. I certainly lack information."
He shouldn’t have come to this archive room so soon.
"Leaving logic aside, but if we consider the outcome of the game, I believe, the little girl picking mushrooms... might actually be the Dean himself, your father."
The little girl’s gaze stiffened slightly, she smiled and tilted her head: "Why?"
"Because the progression of the game is very strange," Su Ming’an looked at her: "Following a normal player’s gameplay, we should have first discovered something fishy at a mushroom cultivation site akin to a tavern, escape unscathed, then find clues in the outside world, go to a hospital or laboratory-like place after the apocalypse broke out to find relevant files, and learn about Duoduo’s situation. And then... finally break through the zombie blockade to come to this hospital, to see you— that’s the normal process for a perfect pass, right?"
Not like them, who landed "caregiver" jobs on the second day, heading straight for the final challenge here in City X, directly facing Duoduo.
Clues were too obvious, and thus the answer shouldn’t be the simplest one of all.
"The design of normal levels should cater to the tens of thousands of players thrown into the vicinity of this city, not a man and a woman from a recruitment ad. Our approach to the truth was too much of a shortcut, so much so that on the fifth day we completed the journey that should have taken fifteen days," Su Ming’an said: "So... our clues are still missing."
Duoduo’s smiling eyes slowly turned cold.
"You’re quite right, Big Brother."
The sinister singing that surrounded them abruptly stopped. Facing Su Ming’an, whose gaze was tranquil as he looked at her, Duoduo’s eyes were icy cold like frost.
"But you still lost." Duoduo sneered, "You’ve missed your chance to answer, Big Sister is already dead, and there’s no escape from here. You can only—experience endless despair and pain over the next ten days, besieged until death."
"I know." Su Ming’an held the young girl in his arms, never once putting her down. The girl’s blood was almost drained, and his chin and hands were nearly void of any visible skin, his clothing fully saturated into a deep red-black.
"Has Big Brother accepted his fate of dying here?" Duoduo curled her lips as she watched him, "Don’t worry, Big Brother, Duoduo will treat your and Big Sister’s bodies gently. Duoduo still has lots and lots of delicious mushrooms, which will be planted gently, bit by bit, one Duoduo at a time... gently into Big Brother’s body..."
"It’s fine, do whatever you like." Su Ming’an ignored the little girl’s monologue and carried Yuanyuan into a corner and sat down.
He slightly turned his face, allowing the girl’s blood to drip down from his chin. He propped the girl lightly beside him, picked up the head from the floor, and gently placed it on the severed neck.
Since the head kept falling off, he propped the corpse in the corner with the wall, giving support, ultimately presenting a somewhat complete young girl before him.
After finishing all this, he shook the layer of blood off his hands and called softly to the air beside him:
"Host of the World Game... Boss Rabbit, you can see me, right?"
He wanted to seize this opportunity to learn some things.
The only response was an encompassing silence.
"Although there are billions and billions of players participating, as Number One... I should be able to get some of your attention, right?" Su Ming’an said, "Can I have a chat with you?"
A streak of red light flashed.
The snow-white rabbit had a blood-red scale etched onto its belly, but the pattern of the scales was distorted, with something like a shattered eye glaring outward from it. It appeared amidst the silence, still wearing a seemingly pure and flawless smile.
"Oh my, my dear top-ranked Ming’an, lovely Number One Player~ Although I, as a host, should not directly intervene in the game, I really can’t help myself when I hear my dear top-ranked’s call..." Its body began to twist eerily, and its limbs started to undulate, turning into wrung noodles: "It’s so hard to endure, so hard... Is my dear Number One asking for mercy by dying here? Aww, if he’s begging for mercy, whether to agree or not is such a dilemma. The clash between rationality and sensibility, life and death, dignity and life—it’s so wonderful, so fantastic, so intoxicating..."
Listening to the rabbit’s words, Su Ming’an reaffirmed the suspicion in his heart—that miraculous death rewind skill was known and possessed only by him.
So, could this skill, which escaped the control of the World Game’s master, bring him some chance to break out of the gameboard?
He calmly watched Boss Rabbit finish twisting, his expression unchanging.
"...A bit disappointing, not getting any response."
With thoughtful blood-red eyes, Boss Rabbit swept its gaze over the young man, who seemed to be soaked in blood, squinted its eyes, and let out a malicious chuckle, "...At first glance of our dear Number One at the initial stage, I thought he was just a student with sharp intuition—turns out he really is quite extraordinary! So, what will the next step be? Will you kneel and beg me to resurrect your little comrade? Or cry and clutch my cute little leg, begging me to let you out...?"
"I want to ask you a question." Su Ming’an said.