After finally making it to dawn, Gu Jiu got out of bed with big dark circles under his eyes.
Not only her, but everyone else seemed to be in a bad mood. It was obvious that they couldn't sleep all night because of the noise they had heard last night.
Gu Jiu glanced at his roommate. Lu Ji's skin color was sickly pale. Although he didn't have dark circles under his eyes, he looked sickly, weak and pale, and he always looked not in good spirits.
After finishing breakfast, Wu Yang said seriously, "I hope we can cooperate. No matter what information we find, try to share it so that we can pass the level as soon as possible and leave the game world smoothly."
In order to get more clearance points, some players will deliberately conceal information, resulting in players receiving incomplete information, being unable to make correct judgments, and ultimately dying in the game world.
Everyone nodded. They were beginner players in the D-level field and were not very strong, so working together to pass the level was indeed the best way.
Seeing that they agreed, Wu Yang's expression eased a little, and he continued, "Gather at the door of Lao Li's house one hour before dinner to share the news you found with each other."
It may be dark after dinner, so evening is not a good time to discuss things as it may easily trigger some unexpected events.
No one objected.
Then they dispersed and inquired about the curse in the village.
Gu Jiu didn’t sleep well last night and didn’t want to move.
She went back to Lao Li's house, took a bath, changed into clean clothes, sat on a rock by the roadside, and observed the life trajectories of the villagers with her chin in her hand, watching with great interest.
Lin Dandan passed by and saw her like this and sneered.
In the game world, if the player does not work hard to find information to pass the level and avoid danger, he will not know how he died in the end. No one who comes to the game world is lazy. In order to survive, even the laziest person will become active.
Except for those who don't want to live.
But who wants to die when you can live
Lin Dandan walked away indifferently, without any saintly attempt to remind anyone.
The warm sunlight shone on his body, and Gu Jiu found that it should be autumn in Qingshan Village.
It was not until lunch time that Gu Jiu got up lazily and went to the village chief's house for lunch.
After lunch, the group continued to explore the village, and Gu Jiu still found a place to sit lazily.
When the fat brothers passed by, they happened to see Gu Jiu sitting under the shade of a tree, playing the stone throwing game with the children in the village. The corners of their mouths twitched involuntarily, and they almost suspected that they were still in the real world, not the dangerous game world.
Seeing the two brothers, Gu Jiu greeted them friendly.
As the saying goes, don't hit a smiling person, let alone such a beauty. The fat man happily pulled his brother over.
Compared with the cheerful and energetic fat man, the thin man is taciturn and has hardly ever spoken a word. But no matter what decision the fat man makes, he will not object and will follow his brother silently.
"Miss Gu, aren't you going to the village to look for customs clearance information?" the fat man asked.
Gu Jiu adjusted his glasses, holding a willow branch in his hand and gesturing on the ground, and said nonchalantly: "I have been weak since childhood, and I don't have your good physical strength, so I won't go."
The two fat brothers choked.
This is a dangerous gaming world, you can't just sit there and do nothing just because you are weak and fragile.
Could it be that she wanted to win with them without any effort? Even Wu Yang, who had experienced four game worlds, had no confidence that he could pass them smoothly. Every game was dangerous. One carelessness could result in death, or even the death of all members.
The fat man couldn't bear to see her die because of ignorance, so he said seriously: "Miss Gu, the Zhutian game world is divided into five game world levels, D, C, B, A, S. The D-level game field is the easiest, and novices usually enter the D-level game field. For example, the Cursed Village this time is a D-level game field. As long as you survive ten D-level game fields, you can upgrade to a C-level game field. Players gain points through the game, and the points can be used to buy props in the game mall. Props can be used to protect themselves in the game world and increase the survival rate..."
Gu Jiu listened quietly. This was something that a newcomer playing the first game didn't know.
"After each game, the system will summarize the points for the players. The points are related to the players' performance in the game world. If the players do nothing and rely on their teammates to win, the points will generally be very low."
This was a subtle reminder to her that if she wanted points, she should be more proactive, and the faster she cleared the levels, the more points she would get.
Points are very important to the tasker, as they can be used to purchase life-saving items.
Gu Jiu asked curiously, "A D-level game field has no time limit?"
"If the mission content does not give a specified time to complete the mission, there is usually no time limit. However, even if there is no time limit, the ghosts and evil spirits in the game world will not give players time to slowly search for information to complete the mission. They will not be able to bear it and will kill the players, resulting in the annihilation of the whole team."
Gu Jiu nodded, thinking that this was quite normal.
The fat man said with a smile: "In fact, it's good to have new players in the team. It will appropriately reduce the difficulty of passing the level. In order to prevent old players from using wrong information to harm new players, the system will reward old players with some points and let them explain the situation to the new players."
Therefore, this time, Wu Yang, as the player with the longest qualifications, has already received points rewarded by the system.
Gu Jiu thought to himself that it seemed that this Zhutian game was quite humane and would protect those newcomers who knew nothing about the game.
Gu Jiu thought about it and asked a question that concerned her, "How does the Zhutian Game World select players? Is it a random selection?"
The fat man was not surprised that she asked this question, as it was a question that many newcomers were curious about.
He smiled and said, "It's not random, there are selection conditions. The system will explain this to you after you successfully complete the first game mission. We can't tell you now."
Gu Jiu expressed his understanding. If one wanted to truly understand the inside story of the Zhutian game world, one must survive the first game. The first game was equivalent to the player’s admission ticket.
Then she asked: "If you stay in the game world for a long time and return to reality..."
"It doesn't affect the real world. When you enter and when you exit, there won't be a second difference. This is to protect the stability of the real world." The fat man said, "Unless you enter..."
The rest of the words were muted. Gu Jiu raised an eyebrow, realizing that this was the game's protective mechanism. Newcomers who had not successfully passed their first game world were not qualified to know it for the time being.
Sure enough, the fat man said, "Once you successfully survive the first game, these game systems will solve your puzzles."
Gu Jiu hummed nonchalantly, and asked some more questions about completing the game. As long as it didn't involve things that couldn't be revealed due to the game's protection mechanism, the fat man answered patiently.
After the fat brothers left, Gu Jiu continued to play with the children in the village.
These children are not very old, the oldest is seven years old and the youngest is six years old. Children from remote mountain villages like these are not sent to kindergarten and go directly to primary school.
She used willow branches to write on the tree and taught them to recognize numbers, from one to ten.
As the sky darkened, the women in the village stood at their doorsteps, calling their children to come home for dinner.
Just as Gu Jiu was about to leave, a dark-skinned, thin child ran up to her, looked at her with an innocent face, and handed her something.
"Sister, thank you for teaching us to read. This is a gift from us to you."
Gu Jiu looked at the brightly colored and exquisitely crafted rag doll that was handed to him. This kind of craftsmanship was simply not something that a country person could make, and it looked inappropriate no matter how he looked at it.
The other children did not say anything. They stood aside and watched them quietly. When their innocent eyes stared at people, they looked particularly creepy.
These children suddenly lost their innocence and became weird.
"Sister, don't you want to accept it?"
**
An hour before dinner, everyone gathered in Lao Li's yard to exchange the information they had collected.
"I think the ancestral hall in the village is very suspicious. There are guards there who won't let us in." Wang Peiping said, looking at everyone's eyes with a bit of complacency, "Many places in the village are open to us for investigation, why not the ancestral hall?"
Wu Yang said, "Indeed, you can find time to sneak in and take a look. Also, Granny Wang at the east end of the village is a widow. I heard that she can make beautiful rag dolls. You should pay attention to this person."
When hearing the word rag dolls, many people can't help but think of things like cursed dolls.
Lin Dandan said, "There are blood stains under the roots of the willow tree at the entrance of the village. Willow trees have always been used to ward off evil spirits in the countryside, so there shouldn't be blood on them, right?"
The fat man and the thin man also shared their findings. "We tried to walk out of the village today, but the end of the road was still Qingshan Village. We couldn't get out, but the children going to school could. They were not affected."
School-age children in the village usually go to primary school ten miles away.
Everyone was not surprised by this. It was only after the fat brothers tried it that they were able to confirm it.
After the five people finished speaking, they looked at Lu Ji and Gu Jiu.
Lu Ji is as taciturn as the thin guy. Although she is good-looking, her presence is not strong. Coupled with her sickly appearance, people doubt whether she can survive in the dangerous game world.
On the contrary, Gu Jiu looks frail and also looks useless, but her presence is so strong that people cannot ignore her.
Lu Ji said that she went to investigate several households on the mountainside today and found that they were growing a medicinal herb called Grass Ghost Core at the doorsteps of their homes.
"I heard from the old people in the village that the grass ghost core can cure amnesia."
Amnesia
Everyone instantly remembered what the village chief said last night. The village chief said that mountain ghosts would appear at night and would capture people's souls. Could it be that after capturing souls, they would just correspond to amnesia, and need to be treated with grass ghost core
Finally, everyone looked at Gu Jiu, wondering what she had discovered.
Lin Dandan and the fat brothers both knew that Gu Jiu did nothing today and just sat around in the village. The fat brothers were okay, but Lin Dandan looked down on her.
Gu Jiu slowly took out a rag doll from his windbreaker pocket and said, "This was given to me by a child in the village."
The rag doll is wearing an old-fashioned floral cotton jacket and skirt. Its hair is smooth and soft, very much like human hair. Its face is round, and its big eyes, small nose and small mouth are all smiling. It looks very cute, but inexplicably gives people a creepy and terrifying feeling.
Everyone was a little frightened and took a step back, looking at her in disbelief.
"You, how dare you take this kind of thing?" Lin Dandan screamed, especially when she met the rag doll's eyes that were as shiny and transparent as a human's, a chill ran up from her ankles.
Gu Jiu said: "They took the initiative to give it to me."
"Just accept it if someone offers it to you?" Lin Dandan said subconsciously, with a very aggressive tone.
Wu Yang was a kind person and didn't want to see the two girls quarreling, so he explained, "In the game world, you can't refuse something an NPC offers you. If you refuse, the consequences may be worse than accepting it."
Although this rag doll is indeed very strange, it is not certain whether something bad would happen after Gu Jiu refused it at that time.
In things like this, the chances of success or failure are 50-50, and it all depends on the player's luck.
These words made Lin Dandan choke, and in the end she could only hold her breath and say nothing more.
Wang Peiping and the fat brother looked at Gu Jiu, and for a moment they didn't know whether they should say that she was unlucky.
Among the seven players, Gu Jiu was the first one to receive something forced from an NPC. Although he didn't know whether it was good or bad, most of the time the players didn't want to take the risk because the rules in the game world were sometimes too fucked up.
Indeed, if you are lucky, this rag doll may be an important prop that helps you pass the level.
But what if it is something that attracts ghosts
This 50-50 probability makes many players not want to gamble.
After dinner, the village chief repeated what he said last night: "Don't leave the house at night. Mountain ghosts will appear and they will seduce people's souls."
"Why is it like a tape recorder? I reminded me once last night and I reminded me again today." The fat man muttered softly.
Wu Yang's expression changed slightly, and he looked back at the village chief's house. The oil lamp in the village chief's house was still on, and it was the only place with lights on in the village after dark.
After returning to Lao Li's house, everyone simply washed up and went back to their rooms to rest.
There was an oil lamp lit in the room. It was the only source of lighting in the house. There was very little oil in the lamp and it would only last for about an hour before going out.
The amount of oil in the oil lamp is fixed every day, and I don’t know who adds it.
The brightness of the oil lamp was so dim that I couldn't see clearly in any corner of the room.
Lu Ji leaned back on the bed. The dim light could not hide her pale face, which had a morbid beauty.
She suddenly asked: "Ms. Gu, why did you take this doll?"
Gu Jiu put the doll on the bedside table, looked at Lu Ji, met her dark pupils, and smiled slightly. The smile was particularly peaceful and gentle under the light. "The child who gave me the doll said one thing at the time: He hoped that I would do something for them. This is the reward."
Lu Ji looked at her with dark eyes, and he seemed not to understand what she meant.
Gu Jiu said: "We'll know tonight."
Seeing that she had no intention of explaining, Lu Ji did not force her and lay down with his clothes on.