strangeness.
Jie Fangcheng lowered his head and looked into the dagger's eyes.
He shouldn't feel any pain, because there shouldn't be anything in this game that can hurt him.
They are in different dimensions, how could anything possibly hurt him
But now, the dagger was actually stabbing out from behind him. Jie Fangcheng even wiped the corner of his mouth and found that he was vomiting blood.
He turned his head suddenly, and the "Zhang Daoan" behind him just looked at him quietly.
"you… "
Before he finished speaking, Jie Fangcheng suddenly felt someone pulling him.
When Jie Fangcheng looked up, he was stunned.
Why is there another Zhang Daoan?
Compared to Zhang Daoan who stabbed him in the back, the new "Zhang Daoan" in front of him looked more normal.
"Manager Xie, are you okay?"
Jie Fangcheng shook his head and was about to speak when the "Zhang Daoan" in front of him smiled.
"I'm glad you're okay."
After saying that, another dagger stabbed towards him.
Two knives!!
Jie Fangcheng wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, feeling very depressed.
"I hate times like this when I need to use my brain!"
The two "Zhang Daoan" in front of him were obviously not the real Professor Zhang. Not to mention why Zhang Daoan would stab him for no reason, the two people who stabbed him clearly had no names and were not souls.
What is the situation now
A dream
Just as Jie Fangcheng was thinking this, the scene in front of him suddenly changed, from the original temple to a complex, flowing thinking space like a paint palette.
This was the thinking space of Zhang Daoan that Jie Fangcheng had seen before.
At the same time, the third "Zhang Daoan" appeared, still beside him, grabbing Jie Fangcheng's wrist with one hand.
He looked at Jie Fangcheng anxiously.
"Are you okay?"
Jie Fangcheng looked at "him" expressionlessly. Sure enough, the next second, a dagger inexplicably appeared in the hand of this "Zhang Daoan" and stabbed straight at Jie Fangcheng.
"Again??"
Jie Fangcheng slapped the dagger out of his hand, then swung the giant sword in his hand, and the three "Professor Zhang" surrounding him flew backwards, hit the ground, and turned into a wisp of white mist.
It seemed as if Zhang Daoan's thought space changed again. Jie Fangcheng felt as if he had woken up from a dream. When he opened his eyes again, he was held in Zhang Daoan's arms.
Zhang Daoan looked at him anxiously.
“…Manager Xie, you’re finally awake.”
Without saying a word, Jie Fangcheng chopped "Zhang Daoan" who was holding him away with his sword.
Before "Zhang Daoan" landed on the ground, he had already turned into a wisp of white mist again.
But before Jie Fangcheng had time to think about what was going on, the scene before him changed again.
Still feeling as if waking up from a dream, Jie Fangcheng opened his eyes.
In front of him, Zhang Daoan’s back stood in front of him, kneeling on one knee.
Realizing that he had woken up, Zhang Daoan turned his head.
"Manager Jie..."
Jie Fangcheng's sword has been handed out.
With a "bang", another wisp of white mist appeared.
The scene before my eyes changed again.
Countless times, in the blink of an eye, the scene changed and Zhang Daoan was seen wearing the divine robe again.
He was stunned when he saw Jie Fangcheng.
"untie… "
Xie Fangcheng swung the sword in his hand, but before it touched Zhang Daoan's neck, it suddenly stopped steadily.
"Hi!"
Xie Fangcheng is just not very smart, but he is not a stupid person.
He had understood it a long time ago.
Is this to form a conditioned reflex for himself? When he sees the real Zhang Daoan in a certain scene, will he swing the sword in his hand out because of muscle memory? —
Isn't that underestimating him
After seeing the real Zhang Daoan, Jie Fangcheng put away his sword.
"What's going on?" he asked.
Zhang Daoan understood after seeing his reaction.
"Are you constantly experiencing scenarios where you need to kill 'me'?"
"About the same. How about you?"
Zhang Daoan looked very calm: "I have been experiencing being killed by you."
What he didn't say was that Zhang Daoan had experienced this kind of scene, where he was having a calm conversation with Jie Fangcheng, countless times.
Jie Fangcheng's "dream" is simple, crude and outrageous.
"Zhang Daoan" drew his dagger within two seconds of meeting him, obviously not trying to deceive him and make him think that this was the real Zhang Daoan.
But Zhang Daoan’s “dream” is quite realistic.
After he entered the temple, he soon met "Jie Fangcheng".
The fake "Jie Fangcheng" would call him "Professor Zhang" just like the real one, and would speak to him in a casual manner. His tone, eyes, and movements were exactly the same as the real Jie Fangcheng.
Compared with the rough dream created by the "Returning Dream Fish" in the copy, the one created this time can be said to be the "Jie Fangcheng" taken out from his memory. Zhang Daoan, the owner of the memory, cannot tell the truth from the false.
This also proves that one of Zhang Daoan's guesses was correct.
There must be more than just Ji Chaoyang and the thief who stole the Book of Life and Death behind this game. With the abilities of two mortals, the world they created can only be as powerful as that achieved by the [God's Favor] copy.
Extracting Zhang Daoan's memory, drawing out the image of Jie Fangcheng from his memory, and deducing it at the same time to create a "Jie Fangcheng" that is indistinguishable from the real thing, this is not something that humans can do.
Even the dreams created by Huimengyu would make Zhang Daoan find something wrong, but Zhang Daoan could not tell the "Jie Fangcheng" standing in front of him, whether it was the Jie Fangcheng created by his own memory or the real Jie Fangcheng.
What's behind this game
Gods? Monsters? Ghosts? Or... someone or some people from the underworld
No matter who is behind this, using this method to deal with him actually makes Zhang Daoan feel more at ease.
This shows that the other party still has some concerns, otherwise they would not have gone through so many twists and turns and resorted to such confusing methods to win.
It’s really a crushing strength, just look at Jie Fangcheng and you will know.
When did he ever use any tricks? He just came with a sword in hand, who could beat him
Then the person behind this game should be someone whose current strength is not as good as Jie Fangcheng.
They will support an infinite game, which obviously violates the iron law of the underworld and will be judged by the underworld after being exposed.
This person is not afraid of the underworld, or he is originally against the underworld.
A ghost
Zhang Daoan still knew too little about the underworld, so he couldn't deduce it.
I can only wait until I meet Jie Fangcheng and ask him.
Although his mind was working quickly, the problem facing Zhang Daoan was that he was still in a "dream" where he had no idea what was going on.
The fake "Jie Fangcheng" would suddenly approach him while talking and kill him with a sword.
Immediately afterwards, there will be another scene change, and "Jie Fangcheng" will appear again.
The existence time of each "Jie Fangcheng" is different. Zhang Daoan has already memorized it. The longest one will take more than half an hour to draw the sword to kill him, and the shortest one will take only ten seconds.
And every time they ask the same question: What happened
Every time, Zhang Daoan would answer him patiently.
If we use a simple and rough method to deal with Jie Fangcheng, and let him kill "Zhang Daoan" repeatedly to form muscle memory, so that he can take action immediately when he sees Zhang Daoan, then to deal with Zhang Daoan, we must consume his spirit.
Explaining the same thing over and over again will gradually wear out anyone's patience.
This method would be very effective against ordinary people, but it would be too difficult against Zhang Daoan.
He would explain it carefully every time.
If you can't tell which one is the real Jie Fangcheng, then treat every Jie Fangcheng as the real one.
Zhang Daoan believed that even if there was a force behind this game that he was unaware of, given the current situation, this "reincarnation" could not be eternal and must have an end.
If it was really eternity, there was no need to create the situation where the "Jie Fangcheng" in his dreams killed him again and again. It would be enough to trap him forever. Why bother creating such a dream
Even Zhang Daoan was very sure that the time outside the dream did not pass very long, maybe just a blink of an eye, a moment.
If the time is long, there is no need to bother with all these. Just kill him when he can't control his body.
The more the enemy took it seriously and the more meticulously they handled it, the calmer Zhang Daoan became. He was more patient and serious in telling Jie Fangcheng about his findings.
After listening to this, Jie Fangcheng was stunned for a moment.
“Maybe there’s someone else behind this game?”
"Yes, and I guess his strength won't be too bad."
His strength can’t be too weak, and he is against the underworld.
To be honest, at this moment, Jie Fangcheng thought of quite a few people who had this motive and this ability.
As for the way the underworld only respects rules and regulations and ignores everything else, it certainly has its downsides, but it also has its upsides.
It has indeed achieved absolute fairness within its authority, otherwise in Jie Fangcheng's situation, there would have been no chance of being suppressed and he would have been scared to death long ago.
"There are some things I really can't tell you. If I tell you, you will remember it when you come back." Jie Fangcheng hesitated, "But there are indeed some who are quite powerful and who are against the underworld."
"a lot of?"
"Quite a few."
Zhang Daoan nodded and said, "God?"
Xie Fangcheng: “…”
Seeing his reaction, Zhang Daoan immediately understood: "Are there really gods?"
It seems that the relationship with the underworld is not very good.
Jie Fangcheng was speechless: "Your brain... I think you will never be reborn."
Zhang Daoan just smiled and said, "It's okay if you don't vote. There's nothing good in this world."
When others say this, it may sound a bit pretentious, but when Zhang Daoan says this, it is indeed quite believable.
In his situation, although 100% of the people he met were bad people, it is true that it was difficult for him to get other people's kindness since he was a child.
People who have too much ghostly and yin energy are more likely to encounter evil spirits and attract evil, so it is normal for them to not find the world interesting.
Jie Fangcheng was quite open-minded, and patted his shoulder: "If you really want to do this, I'll find you the information I used when I took the exam after you come back. You can't survive in the underworld without a job."
It must be said that the boss of the underworld is worthy of being the Lord of Mount Tai. The writing styles of the human world and the underworld are quite consistent.
The two exchanged information with each other, and Jie Fangcheng did not forget to tell what had just happened.
"That's weird, that wasn't you just now? But I saw your name."
Zhang Daoan thought about it and shook his head.
"Not sure. But be careful of Ji Ge... Since he has given me this hint, I'd rather believe it."
There was a thick white mist all around, and there was no trace of the temple or the people who had followed in.
"What should we do now?" Jie Fangcheng asked very skillfully.
Zhang Daoan pondered for a moment and thought of something.
“That silver dream fish… it’s not here.”
Since being recruited by Zhang Daoan, the silver Huimeng fish has completely become his employee. It is very obedient and dares not go west when told to go east. However, it is not in his mind at this moment.
It was impossible to sneak away. How scary was Zhang Daoan? Even when he closed his eyes and slept, his subconscious mind could remember to trap the fish in his brain. The fish was not a human, so it could sneak away when he was not paying attention.
The fish is not here now, so...
"Are we... in someone else's mind space?"
Both of them have had the experience of entering each other's thinking space, and they know very well that the thinking space is like a small world.
For someone like Zhang Daoan who has good control over his own thinking space, building a city in his mind is not a problem. Everything else can be done except that there are no living creatures.
It is difficult to take the Huimeng Fish away from his thinking space without anyone noticing by normal means.
Only a thinking space at a higher level than his can do this.
If they are now in someone else's mind space...
"But we just met a 'person'." The fake "Jie Fangcheng" and "Zhang Daoan" just now really appeared out of thin air.
Creating living things in the mind space is already within the scope of the "rules". Not to mention ordinary humans, even Jie Fangcheng has only heard of it.
"If this is true, the person behind the game must be of a very high status. He must be above the Ten Kings of Hell in the underworld to be able to do this."
When it comes to "rules", it's not enough to just be strong. One must also have the corresponding status to be recognized by the way of heaven.
Jie Fangcheng had no idea about the various trade-offs involved, and he didn't usually care about them. After all, he was just a department manager, and if he cared too much, he would get into trouble.
But are there such people behind this game
Who could it be? He was not familiar with the one in the sky, he had only fought with him once.
The underworld is also unlikely.
More than 1,500 years ago, the underworld was purging traitors in a war that shook the world. Only four of the Ten Kings of Hell were left. The big boss hasn't shown up since that battle, and has been recuperating from his injuries until now. He occasionally comes out to assign tasks, and each assignment lasts for one or two hundred years. He is like a teacher handing out test papers before the holiday, with a kind of heroic attitude that doesn't care about the lives of his employees.
Jie Fangcheng was also asked to help in that battle. Later, the underworld was really short of people, and any slightly powerful ghosts made the ghost catcher busy and flustered.
Jie Fangcheng was helpless, as he owed someone a huge favor and couldn't just stand by and watch the underworld collapse. He had no choice but to stay and help for 1,500 years.
Since that war, the system of the underworld has become increasingly rigid, and the procedures have become increasingly complicated, because no one dares to take a wrong step, for fear that the scene of that year will reappear.
Even now, new ghost officials who take exams cry while reciting their lessons, and there is still an unknown number one scholar in some dynasty who would jump into the river in anger when taking an exam for civil servants in the underworld.
Jie Fangcheng thought about it and didn't think that anyone would be so rebellious as to give up his job as a social animal 007 or a civil servant to play such an infinite game.
There is no reason!
Xie Fangcheng had his reasons for rebelling back then, so why is he making a game to disgust people here
What is the purpose of this game? What do the people in the underworld want to gain from the game
If he is not from the underworld, then it is nonsense. He has many enemies and few acquaintances in the higher places.
Jie Fangcheng was thinking hard, and Zhang Daoan seemed to be mentally prepared.
This ordinary human, whose soul was clearly shattered, looked calm when he heard these words.
"It looks like this will be a case with a lot of implications." After saying that, he even smiled and said, "Then it has nothing to do with us."
Jie Fangcheng was startled, then also amused.
really.
In this situation, it is not him as the financial manager who should be worried.
"How do we get out now?"
Zhang Daoan looked at the white fog around him.
"let me try."
After saying that, he closed his eyes.
Jie Fangcheng hadn't figured out what he meant yet, but a few seconds later, the white mist around him seemed to be treated as dough and was being flattened and rounded.
Only then did Jie Fangcheng understand.
This was someone's thinking space, so Zhang Daoan simply entered his own thinking space.
The thinking space is not a Russian nesting doll. If you put the outside inside, the inside will obey the rules in the thinking space.
If we have to make a metaphor, it is more like a small river and the ocean. Only if the ocean outside is large enough, tens of thousands of times larger than the river, can it safely accommodate the river.
But obviously, Zhang Daoan is not a small river, it is at least a lake of considerable size.
After all, although Zhang Daoan is just a human being, he is more than just a human being.
He is made up of the soul fragments of evil spirits. Over the years, his life has been harder than the ghosts being tortured in hell. He is constantly harassed by tens of thousands of evil spirit fragments, and also has to deal with the bad luck brought by yin and ghost energy.
But at the same time, the evil ghosts that make up him are not ordinary ghosts. To reach the point of being shattered to pieces, they must have taken at least a hundred lives.
If Zhang Daoan wants to be a fierce ghost, he can take over the baton from the previous King of Fierce Ghosts, Manager Jie, and become the new King of Ghosts on the spot.
But if you say that Zhang Daoan is strong, he is indeed a mortal, and his fighting strength is at the level of a novice among the player group, and it can even be said that he is powerless.
You can say he is weak, but in his current situation, with a little practice, even if he cannot match Jie Fangcheng's strength, it will be no problem for him to reach Lao Cui's position.
What's more important is that this person's level of development of his own thinking space is astonishing. You have to know that before this copy, he had never actively entered the thinking space.
After just a few times of entering, he was not only able to control himself, but also influence others in turn...
Just as he was thinking this, Zhang Daoan suddenly opened his eyes and spat out a mouthful of blood.
Jie Fangcheng quickly supported him: "Are you okay?"
After that, Jie Fangcheng comforted him: "The person behind the game can create creatures. This involves the highest rules. You can't find many people like him even if you look all over the world. It's normal to lose to such a person."
In other words, the fact that Zhang Daoan, as a mortal, could enter the thinking space under such circumstances was something Jie Fangcheng had never heard of before.
He opened his mouth to comfort him. After vomiting blood, Zhang Daoan didn't say anything. He drank a bottle of system medicine before speaking.
"In fact, when I first entered this game, I was very curious. This game covers such a large area, stores so many souls, and can run silently for fifty years. How is it done? Now I know."
"What?"
Zhang Daoan looked at the white fog around him.
Compared to when he entered, the white mist around him had become slightly lighter.
"The person who built the game put the game in someone's mind space."
Jie Fangcheng was stunned.
Just now, Zhang Daoan entered his own thinking space.
It was a very strange feeling. When he entered his own thinking space before, he could sense that he was the only master in this world.
Any external object, no matter how small it is like a grain of sand, can be found instantly by Zhang Daoan as long as he wants to.
But this time when he entered, Zhang Daoan felt that his thinking space seemed not just his own.
It’s like a computer that had been in stand-alone mode before, but at that moment it was connected to the huge network.
There are countless such computers on the Internet, some of which are online and some of which are inaccessible.
Zhang Daoan's thinking space belongs to him and he still has control over it, but it has been connected to the Internet.
When Zhang Daoan tried to disconnect manually, at that moment a huge flow of information discovered the rebellious behavior of this "computer" and rushed over.
There was no other way, Zhang Daoan could only settle for the second best.
He stretched out his hand.
"Oh my god!" Jie Fangcheng looked at the silver Huimeng fish in his hand, "How did you get it back?"
Zhang Daoan held the fish in his hand, thinking about what had just happened.
The computers that have not been connected to the Internet should belong to the players. The computers that are already connected to the Internet, with their thinking space open and able to rewrite programs and perform split-disk operations, are most likely NPCs.
Just now, Huimengyu has been put into an online thinking space. Although Zhang Daoan cannot compete with this huge data flow, it is still convenient to catch a fish.
There is another thing he cares about.
"The mind space is represented by bound balls of light. There are very few of them, less than two hundred."
Two hundred!
The number of members of the Ronghua Guild alone is close to this number. There are tens of thousands of active players who go to dungeons in the game, plus the larger number of players who do not go to dungeons, and the majority of players who have died and have been absorbed by the game. The number of light balls should be even greater. How could there be only two hundred
"Look at it in a positive way. Maybe it's because the underworld discovered this game? After all, Lang Gu was summoned suddenly. Their department is so busy that everyone noticed that a ghost had been missing for only half an hour." Jie Fangcheng made a guess. "Don't look at the current morals of the underworld. The martial virtues are still abundant."
Zhang Daoan was not so optimistic, but he had not found more clues to deduce other speculations.
"Maybe." Zhang Daoan didn't say anything else. He just took Huimengyu back into his own thinking space. "But we can get out now."
"Um?"
Zhang Daoan reached out and held Jie Fangcheng's hand: "Enter my thinking space and follow me."
Jie Fangcheng closed his eyes without saying anything.
Huimengyu connected the two people like a light cat, and soon, the two appeared in Zhang Daoan's thinking space again.
This time, Zhang Daoan's thinking space directly turned into a high-tech Internet scene. Looking out from his semi-open thinking space, Jie Fangcheng saw for the first time the scene that Zhang Daoan had just seen.
There were less than two hundred light balls surrounding them, some of which were relatively close and looked like they might be Wei Yuan and his group.
However, compared to Zhang Daoan’s semi-open thinking space, there were not many chains of data around the light balls of Wei Yuan and others, and their thinking spaces showed no signs of being open.
There is another part that is very far away, as if it is the end of the universe, emitting light like tiny stars.
This place is very big, so big that Jie Fangcheng can't see the end at a glance. The endless emptiness makes people feel creepy.
There was a faint black mist surrounding the area, which was clearly the negative energy that had not yet dissipated.
With the help of Huimengyu, a large number of memory screens kept emerging in Zhang Daoan's own thinking space, and some of them were even repeated.
The emergence of the memory screen is like building a firewall. Finally, at a certain point of qualitative change, the attacking information flow cannot break through the layers of memory screens, but is instead captured by the memory barrier.
Taking advantage of the moment when the information flow was disconnected, Zhang Daoan finally regained his own thinking space.
At the same time, Jie Fangcheng, who was in his thinking space, was wrapped up and disconnected from the "network" together.
Jie Fangcheng only felt a sudden sense of detachment, and then he opened his eyes again.
The white mist remained unchanged, but this time, he and Zhang Daoan were no longer the only ones around.
"Brother Jie!!"
Nie Shuangshuang shouted anxiously, and before Jie Fangcheng could come to his senses, he felt the scene in front of his eyes suddenly darken.
"Wei Yuan!!"
Jie Fangcheng raised his head.
Wei Yuan, nicknamed "The Rock" and famous for his protectiveness, stood in front of Jie Fangcheng with his back to him and arms open in a protective posture.
A bloody hand pierced through his heart, holding a still beating heart.
The next second, with a "pop" sound, the heart exploded in front of Jie Fangcheng's eyes.
Blood splattered onto Li Fangcheng's face.
Jie Fangcheng caught his swaying body and even raised his head in confusion at this moment.
He recognized that hand.
Compared to the hands of ordinary players, these hands are just like their owner's name, full of sharp wildness.
The sharp nails and the pale, iconic skin of the underworld are the best interpretation of the civil servants of the underworld.
In front of him, a face that was hateful before but quite pleasing to the eye recently looked at him expressionlessly, and a bright red robe was stained reddish brown by blood.
Xie Fangcheng held Wei Yuan's body, with scarlet blood dripping from the corners of his eyes.
"What are you doing... Lang Gu?!"
(End of this chapter)