Chapter 97: Hopeless Sea (21) Upset – Inversion

Last night, Qi Si asked Yuna, “Now that things have come to this, I’m curious what your wish is. To create a sea area belonging solely to you outside of reality and crown yourself king here?”

Yuna smiled and gestured: “That was their wish.”

The slaves firmly believed in the existence of the Sea God, leaping into the ocean in despair like antelopes jumping off a cliff to their deaths.

They used their lives as sacrifices, and their collective thoughts built a long dream from which they would never wake, sealing off the entire sea area leading to the foreign land.

It was as if by doing this, their clansmen would never have to leave their homes again, and they could forever avoid going to that continent they feared… Unfortunately, things went against their wishes. The existence of the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ did not diminish the enthusiasm for the ‘Triangular Trade.’ Profit-seeking Merchants opened up more shipping routes just to continue chasing power and gold.

Yuna had even actively leaked news to lure many people here to use as sacrificial offerings to complete the deal with the Sea God… “A foolish and naive idea,” Qi Si sighed in evaluation. “Countering greedy human nature with escapism and withdrawal—the so-called sacrifice is nothing more than useless sentimentality.”

Yuna lowered her eyes, the smile at the corners of her lips deepening: “It’s not entirely useless; at least I feel happy.”

Scenes of bizarre phantoms appeared as a coherent sequence of images, and the illusions of the past became vividly visible.

The streets were flooded with yellow-green foul water, and the houses were filled with the stench of rotten vegetables and mutton fat. After a day out, the girl returned home to see her mother’s pale, thin body lying in the filth.

No mother does not love her daughter, just as no daughter does not love her mother. Knowing that as long as she died, her daughter would be accepted by the High Priest and the townsfolk, the woman chose to take her own life.

She used her last strength to grasp the girl’s hand, but only managed to spit out half a sentence of her final words: “Yuna, you must become…”

The girl knew what her mother’s unfinished words were; she was to become an angel. This was their shared wish. She cried heart-wrenchingly, wanting to say she didn’t want anything anymore as long as her mother could come back, but in the end, she didn’t say a word—she didn’t want to disappoint her mother.

The High Priest declared that the girl had placed righteousness above family and would be trained as his successor. The townsfolk cheered as they burned the woman’s body and the wooden shack where the mother and daughter had lived. Only a pure white Idol remained in the ashes, which the girl secretly hid away.

The girl grew up bit by bit, taking over the High Priest’s scepter and satisfying the townsfolk’s wishes in his stead. She felt the praise and support of the townsfolk—bustling, noisy, and intense—but she never felt love or warmth from it.

She was indeed no longer ostracized, yet she remained lonely, even less happy than when she and her mother had depended on each other in her childhood. She often missed her mother and gradually realized that after becoming an angel, the person she most wanted to see her was the mother who had often told her stories about angels.

The girl recalled every bit of her time with her mother, the fire in her memory almost burning her eyes. She could no longer stand the hypocritical adoration of the townsfolk, and finally, during a Mass, she held up the Sea God Idol her mother had left behind and admitted her faith was insincere.

The imagined accusations and attacks did not come; the townsfolk were as respectful and enthusiastic as ever, surrounding her and waiting for her to bestow blessings.

She looked at those greedy faces and suddenly felt a tightness in her chest, as if a clump of crumpled feathers had been stuffed inside and expanded after being soaked in water.

She ran into the confessional without looking back and shed tears, weeping beneath the Idol without her mother, just as she had hidden in her mother’s arms and cried bitterly many years ago.

The High Priest, who had not appeared for a long time, quietly arrived, his face still young and his smile still mocking. He told the girl: “Humans don’t care who is a demon or who is an angel.”

“They believe in me only because I can bring them benefits. Just as they expelled you before only because I told them to do so.”

Qi Si raised an eyebrow: “So—you killed them?”

Yuna nodded and gestured: “It was a deal.”

After that day, the girl began to hate all humans—the insatiable townsfolk, the High Priest who planned it all, and herself for indirectly causing her mother’s death.

As much as she hated the present, she missed the past. She wanted to bring her mother back to life, to return to the happy times of the past.

She prayed to the Sea God over and over, and finally received a response. The God sent down an order in a dream: “Offer enough sacrifices for the storm, and I shall give you what you seek.”

So, she gathered all the believers in front of the church and let the tide submerge the town; to collect more sacrifices, she boarded ships one after another to bewitch the passengers… Qi Si looked at Yuna with a hint of scrutiny in his gaze: “You used their lives to prove your value as a believer of the Sea God, transforming from a lamb to be slaughtered into the one holding the knife.”

“I’m curious, since you’ve already decided to turn to the Sea God, why are you still obsessed with making wings to become a so-called ‘angel’?”

“I don’t believe in any god.” Yuna shook her head, a childhood longing appearing on her face, “But I hope that after Mama is resurrected, she can feel at ease, satisfied, and proud.”

…Under the dim yellow sky, Qi Si carried Angela’s body on his back and walked toward the seaside.

White fish with shimmering scales surged on the sea surface, occasionally leaping into the air and reflecting a silvery-white glimmer.

Qi Si turned on the Recorder, and amidst the loud singing, he stood on a giant reef by the sea and threw Angela’s body into the ocean, kicking up white spray.

The white fish hadn’t eaten last night and had been hungry for a long time; they swarmed forward at this moment. A faint watery red bloomed where Angela fell into the water, and fins the size of fingernails elongated at a visible speed, turning into pure white, light feathers.

The mutation spread through the schools of fish like a virus, and before long, a row of dead fish lay along the long coastline, roughly the same number as seen yesterday.

Qi Si was almost certain that the number of feathers a single corpse could produce was constant, regardless of whether it was a man, woman, old, or young.

Yesterday, the feathers produced by Xu Maochun’s death were made into a single wing by Yuna. To fly, at least two wings were needed, which meant that in addition to their own mutation, players also needed to kill someone… No wonder Chang Xu insisted on giving up the clearance plan of flying off the island; he must have anticipated the result of mutual slaughter and was unwilling to yield to this immoral game mechanism.

Qi Si’s own combat power was not high, and he was unwilling to undergo mutation, so he likewise could not take this clearance route.

What he cared about more was what the ‘optimal clearance plan’ corresponding to the TE ending actually was.

Whether it was taking a boat or making wings, the number of people who could clear the game was strictly limited, and combat-oriented players had a natural advantage in the struggle for resources.

Generally speaking, the Eerie Game still emphasized fairness and justice; there must be a clearance path tilted toward intelligence-based players hidden in the shadows, waiting to be discovered.

The moment he entered the altar, Qi Si had actually already made some guesses about the method to clear the game, but he was willing to remain in the instance to gamble for greater benefits.

An existence at the level of the Puppeteer not only paid attention to this instance but also went to the trouble of acting along with the players—what exactly was the goal? It really makes one unable to ignore it… When the bell struck six times, Qi Si walked out of the coconut grove and reached the hotel.

The two-story wooden building was soaked by the humid air, the salty fishy smell manifesting as salt grains spread over the surface. The brown building was not conspicuous against the orange-yellow background, as if it could merge with the world and vanish into thin air at any moment.

Four more statues had appeared in front of the hotel, belonging to the two players who hadn’t returned to the hotel yesterday, Hans, and the long-haired girl. The faces of these statues were lifelike, their expressions resentful and sorrowful, their eyeballs following Qi Si’s footsteps with unwillingness and longing.

Qi Si acted as if he noticed nothing and pushed the door open under the watchful gaze of the statues.

None of the other players were there; only Lu Li was staying behind in the lobby because of his difficulty moving.

He sat in the shadows, holding a black-covered book, his fingertips pinching the pages as he read quietly, as if he were simply enjoying a holiday afternoon.

Hearing Qi Si’s footsteps, he looked up and smiled slightly: “Time is precious; even in the Eerie Game, it shouldn’t be wasted. When you don’t know what to do, reading is an option that can never go wrong.”

Qi Si walked over, stood half a step away from him, and asked with interest: “Is this book good?”

Lu Li closed the book and held up the cover to show it.

The cover was not entirely black; instead, an exquisite and eerie oil painting was depicted in the upper right corner.

A semi-naked woman’s corpse lay pale on an anatomy table, with a gray-black skeletal Grim Reaper and a tall, thin horse standing beside it.

“‘The Devil of Dartmoor,’ a very interesting story. The legendary devil pushes an innocent young girl off a sea cliff, but in fact, the real devil is just human prejudice and selfishness, just as angels are nothing more than human imagination to satisfy their own wishes.”

“Beauty and ugliness, good and evil, human brutality, and collective stupidity—these factors mixed together are timeless literary themes. And without seeing the end, you will never know who the culprit is or who will emerge victorious.”

Qi Si smiled: “It’s just a boring story playing with narrative tricks. It sounds like you already have views on the worldview of this instance; why don’t we compare our answers, how about it?”

His tone was relaxed, like a top student looking for a classmate to discuss the last big question after an exam.

Lu Li also smiled: “Growing wings to fly off the island is a trap. With only physical wings and no wings for the soul, one cannot leave this place and can only serve as a bridal veil for Yuna.”

“Unfortunately, many people have no soul, just like you and me. And only when spirit and flesh are one can one become a true god.”

Qi Si pretended not to hear the underlying meaning and rubbed his chin thoughtfully: “Since you know this, why didn’t you warn them? As far as I know, once the mutation reaches the stage of growing feathers, it’s not far from being harvested by Yuna.”

Lu Li nodded in agreement, then changed the subject: “So far, quite a few people have died. If one or two more die, perhaps it will be enough to trigger the guaranteed minimum death count mechanism, so why seek far and wide?”

Qi Si watched his eyes with interest: “You’ve finally torn off your mask as a member of Kyushu. Is it because you realized you can’t keep up the act anymore?”

Lu Li remained silent.

Qi Si continued: “On the first day, you deliberately had Hans and Ye Linsheng play the ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine, accompanying you in a heartfelt theatrical performance to establish a righteous persona of self-sacrifice and dispel others’ suspicions of you.”

“On the second day, you placed yourself in the position of a victim and buried the existence of ‘Sera members’ as hidden information behind the events to pave the way for introducing the ‘Puppeteer’ this morning.”

“You used the life-saving item 【Akso’s Gift】, which has only a 10% success rate, to create a mist of pseudo-randomness, weakening the traces of the entire layout. Because ordinary people would default to the belief that even if a wise man’s layout involves gambling, he wouldn’t pin his hopes on an extremely low probability; your encounter was just an unlucky coincidence.”

“But probability can be fixed through means. It might be hard to increase the success rate, but lowering it to zero is very easy. You only needed to have your accomplice injure your leg and then take out a long-expired 【Akso’s Gift】, claiming it saved your life. With the other players trusting you enough, no one would doubt your words.”

Lu Li put down the book in his hand and reached up to adjust his gold-rimmed glasses: “Then you might as well guess what I’m trying to do by going through all this trouble.”

Qi Si pulled a chair to sit opposite Lu Li, leaning back with his right hand resting loosely on his knee: “There are too few clues for me to deduce your ultimate goal, but I know that the moment I formed an alliance with Chang Xu, you set your sights on me.”

“An alliance of two among fifteen people isn’t worth too much attention; I’m inclined to believe that either I or Chang Xu has some trait you care about. At first, I thought your target was me, but now it seems I was being sentimental.”

“I guess you want to control me to induce Chang Xu to do certain things. I also know that you must have investigated Chang Xu beforehand, or at least have a certain understanding of him.”

At this point, Qi Si shook his head helplessly: “I shouldn’t have gotten too close to an idiot who does live streams… Things that will be thoroughly researched sooner or later should just die early to avoid harming teammates.”

“You guessed half right, and you seem very confident.” Lu Li sat calmly in his chair, his gaze gentle, like a teacher patiently answering a student’s questions, “But have you ever thought that I have already successfully induced you?”

“You thought that only by touching the corpse of a puppet would you be parasitized by Puppet Threads, didn’t you?”

A shadow loomed silently from behind. Qi Si turned his head slightly and caught a glimpse of the long-haired youth named ‘Ye Linsheng’ in his peripheral vision.

The latter’s eyes were vacant, and his lips trembled slightly, as if he were muttering some incantation.

Qi Si felt a needle-like prick of pain in his right pinky finger, which went straight to the bone like an electric shock.

He raised an eyebrow: “In the dream the night before last, you also remained conscious but pretended to be incoherent and grasped my hand. The Puppet Threads were planted then, weren’t they?”

“Good guess, but unfortunately it’s too late.” Lu Li smiled gently and snapped his fingers.

That sound was clearly very soft, but in his ears, it sounded like the boom of the Clock Tower. Qi Si’s consciousness instantly became blurred, and fragmented images flashed before his eyes.

Interlaced threads between heaven and earth were entangled with each other. A woman with a round belly like a spider lay in the center, surrounded by red, green, and blue frogs. Silver-gray eyes pierced through the mist, and a scepter guided from afar. Fish, birds, insects, and humans all turned together, breaking into cold smiles… His body no longer belonged to him, as if all blood, marrow, and meridians had been drained out, and then cement and glue had been poured in. From joints to muscles to thoughts, everything was as sluggish as parts that hadn’t been oiled for a long time, to the point where they couldn’t establish a connection with the nerves.

Qi Si maintained his sitting posture, fixed to the chair like a statue, and looked up to see Lu Li standing up.

The young man wearing gold-rimmed glasses leaned over, casting a long, thin shadow, and placed the book in his hand into Qi Si’s lap.

The young man’s smile was eerie, yet he let out a soft sigh: “I’m sorry, but I had no other choice.”