Bathed in white light, black smoke billowed from Saman's wounds—whether it was a curse or poison, it was unclear. Ren Yifei lightly touched the wound with his fingertips, causing Saman to wince in pain.
Saman felt the fingertips of the player very close to him tapping and scratching his wounds, causing a slight itch, a tingling sensation like grass scraping against the soles of his feet.
"Ah Fei…" Saman uttered two words and gave up resisting with peace of mind.
"So you knew it was me?"
Saman's lips curled up: "Of all the people in the desolate corner who chose to save me without hesitation, you are the only one who didn't care about gains or losses."
Ren Yifei's lips curled up slightly, but he quickly suppressed it: "How did you get yourself into this state? You look pathetic."
The amulet's purpose was to block one fatal blow, but since the damage had already been done, the amulet was useless. He figured the Archangel's Breath was just sitting there doing nothing anyway—that's how he convinced himself.
"Consider yourself lucky to have fallen here." Ren Yifei leaned down and pinched his cheek. This time, Saman looked particularly young, like a big boy who had just entered university.
"It wasn't luck," Samantha tried to calm himself, his breathing erratic from the tension of the sudden close contact. "It brought me here to you."
A small fragment of a gemstone landed in Ren Yifei's palm.
"Seeking a glimmer of hope in a seemingly insurmountable crisis, that's called 'miracle.'" Saman handed Ren Yifei the thing he had previously tossed on the ground, his voice filled with excitement and anticipation. "This is for you."
"What is this?" A small gem box.
"A copy, a copy of the core of this infinite game. Of course, not as powerful, just a third of it," Saman said casually.
"..." Ren Yifei was silent for a while, then reached out and flicked his forehead with a 'smack', then patted him soothingly, saying rudely, "You're asking for it."
No wonder he almost died despite having so many props. The mini-game is probably going crazy. One player is fishing for law enforcement (Ren Yifei), and another player is making it have babies (Saman).
Forced to 'give birth' to an 'infinite flow baby' that inherited one-third of its genes, how is it doing now?
"You're sure you want to give me something you found with your life on the line?" Ren Yifei looked down into Saman's eyes: "Take it or leave it. Once it's in his pocket, don't even think about taking it back."
"When I saw it, I felt it was a perfect match for you. You may not know, but the true form of the Despair Train is a spherical library system. Carrying it is like carrying a database."
"Wait a minute, can you find the true form of the mini-game?" Ren Yifei recalled that it was because he couldn't find the true form of the mini-game that it escaped.
"I have a skill that can digitize intangible things, breaking them down into 0s and 1s. As for this replicator, it's a one-time-use item I obtained from my fortune-telling skill before coming here," said Saman, the European Emperor.
"What a pity," Ren Yifei thought. If Saman had arrived sooner, their combined abilities would have been enough to deal with the mini-game. Why would they need a clone? They could have just taken the real thing with them!
However, it's just a thought. How could such shady games possibly give them the opportunity to unite?
Seeing that Saman's chest wound had completely healed and was just like before he was injured, the huge wings of light that had been covering the two of them on Ren Yifei's back suddenly dissipated.
The glowing feathers fluttered and drifted away in all directions.
After that, exclamations of surprise rose from the corner: "What is this? How did my injury heal?"
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"..." Ren Yifei looked down at the light feather on his ankle. It automatically found the wound and gently applied it. The wound healed almost completely in an instant. The same was true for the one on his neck.
The skill description only states that you can choose to heal one person, and as long as they have a breath left, you can save them. It doesn't mention that after saving someone, you will have the remaining strength to heal other players in your faction.
"It shouldn't be called Archangel, it should be called the Holy Mother." Ren Yifei sighed, rubbing his forehead.
Coming to his senses, Ren Yifei realized that he was still supporting himself with one hand in the puddle, half-kneeling on Saman, and the distance between them was rather short.
Samantha's boyish face was flushed, his lips were as red as cherries on a branch, and his eyes were moist and bright, as if they were covered with morning dew. His whole body was radiating a signal of "delicious, delicious".
Ren Yifei lowered his eyelids, his long eyelashes obscuring his slightly dilated pupils. He quickly got up, ignoring the regret in Saman's eyes, and pulled him up as well.
Samantha was soaked through, his trousers dripping wet, as was Ren Yifei. The amusement park's circulating air made it feel chilly.
The paper butterflies and paper mice that had surrounded them were gone, leaving only some mushy scraps of paper in the water. But the paper-cutting nursery rhyme didn't stop, nor did the attack from the paper figures.
New paper mice and paper butterflies swarmed around them. Ren Yifei picked up the water pipe again and shoved the gem box back into Saman's hands.
Samantha thought he didn't want to, so he stood up to speak.
"Shh." Ren Yifei put a finger to his lips, his eyes dark as if hiding many secrets. "I know what you mean. We'll talk about it in a couple of days when we get to the Desolate Corner."
He gave a self-deprecating laugh: "I'm afraid you'll want to run away after you see it."
Without needing to say more, both of them understood what this meant. Saman's Adam's apple bobbed nervously, and his cheeks flushed as he waited for Lady Luck to smile upon him under Ren Yifei's gaze: "I won't run away."
"Wait until you see what I'm really like before you say that."
Ren Yifei turned around and continued dealing with the paper butterflies.
Seeing that Ren Yifei could handle things perfectly well on his own, Samantha found a stool and sat down with a "I'm being very obedient" look on his face. The man, who was almost thirty, was now acting like a naive college student without any burden, sitting quietly behind Ren Yifei and watching him spray fan-shaped waves of water from the hose.
The paper mice were no threat, and the paper butterflies were rejected by the water ripples outside the arc. Ren Yifei still had some energy left, so he told Saman about the 'treasure hunt'.
Do you know about the Vikings?
Samantha perked up immediately upon hearing this, as he happened to know the answer.
In reality, Saman owns a game company, and they happen to have a mobile game called Age of Exploration that features Viking pirates, so he has some knowledge of this group.
"They mainly operate in Western European countries, so the first countries to consider are the five Nordic countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. Then, they just need to go along the European coastline; there is basically no country they haven't harassed."
Vikings had a dual identity: when they were in a winning position, they were pirates; when they were outmatched, they were merchants. For example, when the Spanish successfully organized a counter-landing operation, the Vikings who came over became law-abiding 'merchants'.
From this perspective, it's not entirely wrong to say that these European countries all have the blood of bandits; their styles of doing things are exactly the same.
"We're too late. We don't know how many useful clues we can find." Ren Yifei turned back to continue sweeping away the paper butterflies. "If only we could get rid of these butterflies quickly."
However, this mini-game is designed to torment players with these paper animals, so how could it allow them to have items to counter them? And the Wasteland Corner is also unhelpful, with most items and skills unusable.
"Has Afei ever thought that if finding the key would allow them to leave, why bother with a Mr. X whose presence is so subtle?" Saman said meaningfully. "Perhaps we can take a different approach."
Treasure hunt games are mini-games that provide players with a route, but why should they follow the official route? They weren't originally meant to be honest level-clearers.
Ren Yifei paused for a few seconds as he made his move to make the paper butterfly. Saman's words had given him a wake-up call. If they followed the path given by the mini-game meticulously, they would forever be governed by its rules.
I followed the rules set by the Wasteland Corner before because I was making a living under their control. But the mini-games weren't their real bosses; at most, they were their superiors during my undercover period.
What are you waiting for? Just go for it!
"I was bound by habitual thinking." Ren Yifei reflected deeply. He was still used to seeing himself as an ordinary citizen in peacetime and overthinking things.
Once this idea was clear, Ren Yifei found many points he had previously overlooked: "Even the mini-game itself cannot arbitrarily change the rules. Otherwise, it wouldn't need to cheat us in such a roundabout way. Therefore, the clues given at the beginning of the game are the key to this escape room game."
At first glance, the clue tells players to escape the locked room and beware of Mr. X, who is secretly plotting to kill them. But upon closer examination, Mr. X is the designer of the locked room, and only he knows how to leave.
Throughout the entire story, this hint never mentioned that there was a key that could help players leave this place.
In other words: Why look for the key? Just find Mr. X!
"When I cleared the first escape room, I found a clue: Mr. X hopes to be able to wear size M clothes."
Ren Yifei recalled the escape rooms he had experienced before: "But the third escape room I went to, which was the first escape room of a certain NPC (the young man), didn't have any clues. Was the clue randomly generated?"
Samantha nodded: "I encountered one too, in the fourth secret room. The clue was: Mr. X is a loner."
A bachelor of normal or slightly overweight build? It can't be that stupid, round-headed guy wielding a long iron hook.
There is too little information.
Seeing that the paper butterfly was almost dead, Ren Yifei pulled out a piece of gauze from his inner pocket, tore it in half, wet one half with water and covered his mouth and nose: "Let's go see who's cutting paper."
He carried the long iron hook toward the direction from which the paper had come, with Saman close behind.
They encountered many paper objects along the way, but the two of them dealt with them all. Ren Yifei then realized that Saman had a lot of props, one after another—was his pocket connected to another world?
"This character is fairly well-paid," Saman explained, "so I collected quite a few points."
"Really?" Ren Yifei immediately thought of that idiot in their group who spent a million points per point. It couldn't possibly be Saman's; that would be throwing money away, and Saman doesn't seem stupid.
"At first, nobody believed me, so I spent a lot of money on advertising. After that, a lot of people came to sell points. The market changed from a seller's market to a buyer's market, and the price quickly dropped to 50,000 points per point. Occasionally, I could even get one for 30,000." Saman was talking about his own affairs, unaware that Ren Yifei, who was walking ahead, had an increasingly strange expression.
"So, you're quite wealthy." Ren Yifei said calmly: "Oh, it's you, the one who explained 'immunity'."
"No, not exactly. I had some gaps in my job search, so I started taking orders online. Someone asked me to look up someone's biographical information and gave me a million dollars."
Ren Yifei: "..."
Author's Note: Samantha: Ah Fei, I'll earn money to support you! (Wags tail frantically)
hooligan:...