March 18, at half past nine in the morning.
Ji Thrush, Ren Jianmo, Mo Tiangen, and two new members of their team, Fan Hemian and Fan Luming, stood together in front of the huge hourglass in the Hourglass Cube.
Even if it wasn't the first time, Ke Ji Xiaoniao was still a little apprehensive.
"Then I smoked it?"
Ji Thrush rubbed his cold fingers, then looked back at his four companions.
Anyway, extending the head is a knife, retracting the head is also a knife, Mr. Dagen waved at him, "Smash it!"
Ji Thrush stretched out his hand to the huge hourglass, and touched the familiar wall of air.
[Please select the [World] difficulty you want to challenge.]
After the prompt sounded, Ji Thrush finally saw two options this time, [B] and [A].
According to the results discussed with his companions, Ji Xiaoniao pressed option "B".
The luminous cube floating in the glass hourglass slowly rotated, and the vortex of light particles converged. Then one of the cubes broke away from the light vortex, passed through the slender neck of the hourglass, and fell down, making a crisp collision sound.
Immediately afterwards, the air wall suddenly lit up, and all five people heard a burst of cheers.
All eyes are on the screen.
[welcome! Welcome players! Welcome to the 〖24 o'clock〗 game!]
The screen was pitch black, and only a man's voice sounded.
The man's voice carried the ear-piercing electric sound produced by the filter of the machine. Although it could not be called ear-piercing, it always had a deliberate sense of unreality.
Then, countless electric light spots appeared on the screen with a black background. They merged and gathered together, and finally turned into six three-dimensional characters with concave and convex.
It was a title: "Twenty-Four Points of Weird Talk".
The mechanical male voice continued, [Have you heard of the strange stories in this city?]
The title made of light particles disappears, replaced by a strange man in a rabbit mask sitting in front of the camera.
The rabbit mask is not ugly, but it has an indescribably funny and weird feeling, especially the three-petal mouth with a very exaggerated arc all the way to the sides of the cheeks, and the hole dug out under the brow bone is pitch black Yes, I can't see the eyes of the man below, it's almost like a rabbit doll talking directly in front of the camera.
[Do you want to experience the fun of ghost talk for yourself?]
Following these words, the man with the rabbit head mask disappeared again.
On the large screen, a map of the city was unfolded, and small coordinates in the shape of inverted drops were inserted on the map like small arrows.
Because the speed of punctuation is too fast, with Ji Thrush's eyesight, only about two-thirds of the landmarks can be seen clearly.
—Schools, aquariums, residential areas, riversides...
Ji Thrush said to himself quickly in his heart.
[Only those who get 〖Twenty-Four Points〗 can be rescued!]
The man wearing the rabbit head mask spoke in an exaggerated tone, as if singing an opera.
[come on! Find your 〖Blackjack〗!]
The marked areas on the city map were enlarged one by one, and finally the five people present could see the contents clearly.
There are thirteen landmarks in total.
Because the entire trailer is only 30 seconds long, excluding the beginning and the end, the time allocated to each landmark is only a short one or two seconds.
They saw the hanging female student reflected in the school window, a black shadow like a mermaid in the aquarium, fresh trailing blood stains outside an abandoned tube building, deserted riverbanks and ripples spreading round and round...
And behind every scene, there is a poker card.
The picture flashed by in a hurry, and Ji Thrush couldn't match the suits of the cards with the scenes one by one.
But even so, based on the spooky scenes and the title just seen, Ji Xiaoniao is 100% sure that what they are about to face is a city full of urban ghost stories. "world"!
After the thirteen scenes were played, the inverted drop-shaped landmarks returned to the city map one by one, and the trailer came to an end.
The man in the rabbit mask suddenly moved in front of the camera, and a strange smiling face completely occupied the wide screen.
[Remember, no more, no less, it's exactly 〖24 o'clock〗!]
[Come on, accept the challenge of "Twenty-Four Points"!]
He finally said so.
&&& &&& &&&
"Ahhh!"
In the small conference room of Liange, Fan Hemian yelled and pounded the table one after another, with a frantic expression, "How can I be so unlucky this time! How can I be so unlucky!"
Ji Thrush carefully confirmed:
"Is the world we drew this time difficult?"
"It's hard!"
Fan Hemian replied without any hesitation.
Fan Luming beside her also nodded repeatedly, expressing her agreement with her sister's words.
"Well, it's not a bad time for you to come to 'Peach Blossom Spring', no wonder you don't know."
Fan Hemian pushed aside the bangs blocking the corners of his eyes, and explained to Ji Thrush and the three of them:
"That's right, in 'Peach Blossom Spring', the most feared thing that the performers will encounter is the 'world' of supernatural beings."
She simply gave an example:
"The most famous Kayako and Sadako, there must be no one who doesn't know it? In various series of movies, the number of people who died at the hands of these two must have at least three digits."
Ji Thrush thought for a while: "You mean, they are difficult to deal with?"
"It's not difficult to deal with, it should be said that it is impossible to deal with at all."
Fan Luming took the conversation.
"Ghosts of their level can't attack with physical means at all, and they can't even exorcise evil spirits and jump gods. They will be entangled when they encounter them. There is no safe zone, and they cannot escape. Ninety-nine percent of them can only A dead end."
He raised his hand and made a throat-cutting gesture, "This kind of 'world' has a nickname in 'Peach Blossom Spring', called 'Unsolvable Ghost Film', and if the participants get it, it's almost equivalent to being a ghost film." dead."
"Wow… "
Ji Thrush took a deep breath, "Don't tell me, what we got is this kind of 'Unsolvable Ghost Movie'?"
"That's not enough."
Fan Hemian waved his hand.
"This 'world' is too difficult and the death rate is too high. It will only appear in a very small number of S-level difficulties. We are only B-level. How could we encounter this type!"
Ji Thrush and Mo Tiangen both breathed a sigh of relief.
They both felt that the "world" they had drawn the first three times was already difficult enough, if there was another "unsolvable" level ghost movie, and they saw a Sadako or Kayako waiting for them when they opened their eyes, what would that be? It's better to commit suicide now, so as not to go in and suffer those frights and tortures in vain.
"However, although the B-level difficulty has not reached the level of 'unsolvable', the 'world' with supernatural beings as the main line is still recognized as extremely difficult."
Fan Luming spread his hands, "We are not celestial masters. Even if we go back with a copy of "Maoshan Tuzhi", we won't be able to learn it in a month! And even if you are asked to draw a gourd and draw a charm to exorcise ghosts, it doesn't matter whether it works or not. I have to say something else!"
"I see."
Ji Thrush nodded.
What the Fan family meant was that when encountering ghosts and other monsters that cannot be killed physically, they, the participants from "Peach Blossom Spring", have no effective means of attack and can only rely on "escape" to avoid them. , the situation becomes very passive.
But from the trailer, it is not difficult for them to know that this is not a pure ghost talk "world", but also adds a task of "collecting twenty-four points" to them, which means that they can't just think about escaping, It is also very possible to know that there are tigers in the mountains and prefer to go to the mountains, and take the initiative to go up to seek abuse.
"Ah!"
Thinking of this, Ji Thrush couldn't help but yelled, "It's really unlucky! Next time I will definitely not be the captain and be in charge of drawing lots!"
Fan Luming glanced at him and poured cold water on him mercilessly. "Let's talk about this 'world' first."
"Okay, it's useless to worry, let's study the details of the trailer."
Teacher Dagen is very open-minded.
He felt that anyway, even if the first three "worlds" were not supernatural, there was no easy way to go. Since he was struggling and couldn't draw lots again, he should face the reality calmly.
"I actually have a guess."
As Fan Hemian said, he stood up, took a pen and paper from a shelf on one side, spread it out on the table, and began to draw a sketch.
"I guess, we should be playing a game similar to 'blackjack', except that the number of points to be collected is not 21, but 24."
The good boy Ji Thrush asked: "What is 'Blackjack'?"
"Oh, to put it simply, it is to draw cards other than the big ghost and the little ghost, and then add up the points of the drawn cards. The one that is closest to and does not exceed 21 is considered the winner."
Fan Hemian simply explained:
"However, the number to make up now has become 24, and from the rules, it is not the closest, but must be 24 to be considered a winner."
Everyone sitting around the table nodded.
They all remember the words at the end of the trailer, the man wearing the rabbit face mask said, "Remember, no more, no less, it's exactly 'twenty-four o'clock'!"
"We saw thirteen scenes in the trailer, which happened to correspond to the thirteen numbers of playing cards."
As Fan Hemian said, he listed thirteen suits from 1 to K on the paper:
"However, in the game of blackjack, Ace can be equivalent to the two numbers '1' and '11' at the same time, and the four cards of 10, J, Q, and K also represent '10'."
"I see."
It was the first time for Ji Thrush, who had little experience with chess and card games, to hear about this kind of rule. After a little thought, he immediately understood, "So, we need at least three playing cards to make up the number 24? "
"That's right."
Fan Hemian, who is very sensitive to numbers, has actually discovered this a long time ago, "I think this is why they use the 'blackjack' rule, but let us make 'twenty-four points'."
"At least three scenes to go through..."
Ji Thrush clucked his tongue lightly, "This is too embarrassing."
To be honest, he was a little afraid of ghosts, and he didn't even want to go to one landmark, let alone go through at least three!
At this time, Ren Jianmo, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke.
"I can remember every scene and its corresponding card value."
Under everyone's surprised attention, Ren Damei smiled slightly, "I guarantee it will be exact."