Despite his reluctance, Nian Tianxi was still forced to walk the path of death. The mini-game could not save him, nor could it save the other NPCs present.
"Ren Yifei!" he said, his eyes red. "After I die, will my name no longer exist in this desolate corner?"
Ren Yifei remained silent, while Nian Tianxi's laughter was tinged with sadness.
In this desolate corner, there are no tombstones; when a person dies, all is over.
"If only I had died back then and hadn't ended up in the desolate corner." Most of Nian Tianxi's body had disappeared, and his arms and neck were also disappearing, but he suddenly calmed down.
"I was born into a theatrical family, and I was born to sing opera. But my voice is not good enough, so I will never reach the top level and will never leave my name in history."
Nian Tianxi chuckled and said, "I've always thought that if I had chosen the path of the film and television industry from the beginning, the outcome would have been completely different. I would have become a first-class actor, a shining star in the film industry, and would live on in the hearts of movie fans for a long, long time!"
"I'm really sorry to shatter your dream. No circle is easy to navigate," Ren Yifei replied coldly.
Does being unable to become a top-tier theatrical actor guarantee becoming a top-tier film actor?
What are you thinking? This requires the right timing, location, and people. There are so many incredibly talented actors in the industry who just lack a bit of luck and end up as seasoned veterans. Do they have to wallow in self-pity every day? How can they survive like that?
"You don't understand at all! You have already achieved great success and died young, making you unforgettable! Ren Yifei, do you know what it feels like to be easily forgotten after death?" Nian Tianxi's eyes were so red that they were almost bleeding.
"I really didn't expect to be remembered by anyone." No matter what Nian Tianxi said, Ren Yifei remained unmoved.
"I once went to a dungeon, the world I came from. I spent three years in the Desolate Corner, and three years also passed in that world. But after three years, even my former students couldn't remember my name. My existence was meaningless to that world."
At this moment, Nian Tianxi only had half a face left, but even with only one mouth, he still wanted to finish his sentence: "At that time, I swore that I would do whatever it took to survive, to live a long, long life!"
Filled with resentment, Nian Tianxi vanished, leaving behind a semi-transparent silk scroll. Ren Yifei caught it, and it transformed into a prop card produced by the Wasteland Corner.
Given Nian Tianxi's hatred for Ren Yifei, it's unlikely he would leave him any inheritance, so it's... a secret plot in a desolate corner?
"This is?"
After using the prop card, he discovered it was a scattered map similar to a brainstorming session, with a large smiling circle at the center. Lines radiated outwards from it, connecting to smaller circles, each containing objects such as a needle, a snake, a glass test tube, and a mask.
These small circles also emit one or two lines, connecting to even smaller circles, which also contain patterns.
Ren Yifei's finger poked at the outermost small circle, which had a pig-slaughtering knife on it. From the line of this circle down, a lion pattern appeared, followed by a black silhouette of a death scene, then a snake, and after the snake was a smiley face pattern.
These were clearly the obstacles he had overcome along the way, but Nian Tianxi had nothing to do with them.
In other words, the acting competition was a "minor accident" outside of this "escape room instance," and was only aimed at players from the desolate corner?
"Tsk tsk tsk." It really is dark.
This instance is unlike any other instance before. The central point is not the 'ghost'. Everyone is a pawn. The two infinite-flow games are the players, and they have secretly used many undisclosed methods.
For example, the one-on-one chase, the fact that players can see each other's true souls from beginning to end, leading to information asymmetry... all these factors make it particularly difficult for Ren Yifei and others to play this game, because there are just too many unexpected events.
On this map, there are many small dots, most of which are on the line leading to the smiley face pattern, and a few are inside the smiley face. The dot representing Ren Yifei is between the snake and the smiley face.
According to Ren Yifei's understanding, these small dots should be players from the Wasteland Corner.
"But how can there be so many?"
He remembered there were only thirty-odd people on the train, but now there are still more than thirty. Surely everyone can pass without any casualties?
"Hmm?" In just a few seconds, the dots on the silk disappeared. Ren Yifei's heart pounded, and he immediately thought of what Nian Tianxi had said.
"Impossible, he has so many trump cards..." He wanted to say this confidently, but Nian Tianxi's curse lingered in his ears.
Finally, the entire white house was swallowed up, and Ren Yifei appeared in front of an arched doorway.
Beside him lay an unconscious young man on the ground, with a long iron hook he had brought from the slaughterhouse beside him, and Ren Yifei himself had taken the form of 'Zhong Lan'.
The silk handkerchief in his hand transformed back into a card and returned to his pocket. Ren Yifei bent down, picked up the long iron hook, and then pushed open the arched doorway.
His face was covered with a thick layer of ice, and no one could see his true emotions through that layer.
Ren Yifei had imagined what lay behind that door—perhaps a torture chamber, a human laboratory, or an abandoned hospital… In his mind, this final checkpoint should be a terrifying place, a place that would instill fear in anyone who looked at it, causing them to lose their composure.
But when the door opened, what appeared before him was an indoor children's playground.
The lights were bright but not glaring, and the air was clean, without the stench of a slaughterhouse, the odor of a lion, or the smell of decaying corpses.
Before me was a carousel with flashing colored lights, and plump cotton clouds hung from the ceiling.
Everything here is exactly how children like it, and it looks perfectly normal, except that it's completely empty.
Ren Yifei: "..." It seems like he really is the only one there.
He stood in a rest corner, where several sandy-yellow beanbag chairs were piled on the dark blue floor, along with a few fake coconut palm bonsai. This corner was usually where parents with children would rest—there was a sign right next to it that read, "Parents' Rest Area (Maldives)."
Maldives? That's quite an idea.
Next to him was the children's reading area. It was a spherical reading room with bookshelves lining the walls and several rows of bookshelves in the middle, filled with picture books that children of this age would enjoy.
There's also a code name (Switzerland) next to the reading room.
Hmm, so it probably means that true wealth is spiritual abundance?
All the functional areas nearby have their own codes, all of which are the names of countries. Is this a unique feature of this amusement park?
Directly in front of him was another wall. A piece of paper was pasted on the wall, featuring a cartoon pirate captain and a pirate ship, with the four large characters at the top: Treasure Hunt.
Ren Yifei glanced at it a few more times. He now had the awareness of a player and would pay attention to anything suspicious or unusual.
"Four children, one for spring, one for summer, one for autumn, and one for winter, love to play hide-and-seek."
The sudden singing startled him, but he couldn't find the speaker.
Currently, this is the only sound in this place. Combined with its own spinning carousel and the blank eyes of the cartoon puppets around it, it creates an indescribable eeriness.
Ren Yifei looked back and saw that the door he came from had disappeared. All he could see was a painted wall, also with an ocean theme, decorated with various seashells and marine life.
After staying there for a while and listening to the song repeat, he felt he should go out and take a look.
Holding his 'ancestral' long iron hook, Ren Yi flew out of the corner.
Outside was a typical indoor children's playground, designed for children aged three and up who are below primary school age. He walked through the blue and white bubble ball area (UK) and then through the trampoline area of various sizes (India), but still couldn't find a single person.
"Four children, one for spring, one for summer, one for autumn, and one for winter, love to play hide-and-seek."
When Ren Yifei arrived at the role-playing area, another voice came from the amusement park. It was a sharp male voice mixed in with the children's voices on the loudspeaker, and the tone was very strange.
Ren Yifei subconsciously searched for the direction from which the sound came from.
"Are there other people here? Are they friend or foe?"
Following the singing came the sound of footsteps. No, not just footsteps, but also the scraping sound of something being dragged. Ren Yifei suddenly felt uneasy and sought refuge in a nearby building.
This is the role-playing area in an amusement park (Japan). It has two floors and is decorated to resemble different functional buildings, such as a hospital, a police station, a dollhouse, and a kitchen. The items inside are small and exquisite.
At this moment, Ren Yifei was in a small, brick-red room with windows on two sides, looking out through the windows.
He was very careful, making no sound. When dealing with something whose rules are unknown, one must be extremely cautious.
The shrill male voice grew louder and louder, and soon Ren Yifei saw a blurry figure moving among a bunch of claw machines.
This was a man with a large head, thick neck, and a silly grin on his face; he was clearly not mentally stable. But what was most striking were his eyes—extraordinarily large, but with remarkably small pupils, like those of a dead fish.
He looked around, holding a long iron hook like the ones used in slaughterhouses in one hand and dragging a burlap sack in the other.
The bottom of the bag was soaked with blood, and long trails of blood were left behind where he walked.
Ren Yifei's eyes widened slightly.
"Four children, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, love to play hide-and-seek." The mentally challenged man continued singing the nursery rhyme, excitedly searching for any possible hiding places, his eyes filled with a cruel innocence.
"Hmm?" Some subtle sound attracted him, and he stopped singing and walked straight towards the bubble area.
Ren Yifei leaned against the windowsill and watched from afar as the man used an iron hook to paddle in the bubble pool. "Swish, swish," the colorful plastic bubbles made a swishing sound as they were squeezed and pushed around.
The playground was so quiet, with only the sound of nursery rhymes playing on the loudspeaker and the sound of the man splashing around in the bubble pool.
With another whoosh, the man stopped, took two steps to the side, and raised the long iron hook high in his hand...
"Ah—" A scream suddenly appeared and then stopped abruptly. Blood gushed out of the bubble pool like a fountain. Ren Yifei blinked several times, as if the blood had splashed into his eyes as well.
The mentally challenged man began to sing again, his voice filled with joy. He picked up a long iron hook, the hook firmly embedded in a player's neck. A satisfied expression appeared on his face.
Suddenly the man looked up and gazed in the direction of the role-playing area.
The role-playing area is right across the street. From this man's angle, he can see the spiral staircase leading to the second floor and the game room below, which is set up as a prison. In one corner of the prison cell, half of a brick-red room and half a window are visible.
However, there was nothing on the window.
Ren Yifei leaned against the wall, slowing his breathing; he had almost been seen.
Based on the current clues, he may have entered a game scenario, specifically a game of 'hide-and-seek'. One person plays the 'hunter,' and the others must hide and not be found by the hunter.
The players are 'kids', and the man with the iron hook is the 'hunter'.
He entered this place at the wrong time; he doesn't know what the initial scene was like. However, judging from the fact that the players were unwilling to confront that man directly and instead chose to hide, a direct confrontation was pointless, and even running away after being discovered was futile.
Otherwise, the iron hook had been slashing for quite a while, and the player could have easily escaped; it would have been better than sitting and waiting to die. But the other player simply 'sat and waited to die'.
Everyone here is a player, and they all have some means of self-defense, yet they neither run away nor resist. This suggests that there must be some rules governing this game.
Ren Yifei didn't have the joy of playing hide-and-seek with anyone during his childhood, but he knew the rules of hide-and-seek. Losing meant being found, not being caught.
These are two different concepts.
Being found means failure; the moment a player is discovered by this man, they are eliminated. At this point, the player is very likely unable to use items to save themselves, because they have already failed.
Being captured counts as a loss, meaning the player must be controlled by the opponent to be considered defeated. However, being seen or discovered does not count as a 'loss,' as the player still has a chance to fight back or escape.
A soft 'patter' sound suddenly came from behind. Even through a thin wooden wall, goosebumps rose on Ren Yifei's arms: "?!"
He gripped the long iron hook tightly in his hand.
"Hiding in winter and coming in spring, hiding in autumn and coming in summer, you come looking for me, I come looking for him." The man hummed a children's song, sticking his round head into the window of the brick-red house.
His big eyes were two-thirds white, with only a small black dot in the middle, and his eyes darted around.