Survivorship Bias

Chapter 17: Copy ends

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"Growth show?" Josh suddenly let go of his puzzled frown, and he remembered his character's diary, "Could it be that... A02's adoption, growing up, working, getting sick, being cloned... all of this is just A reality show."

"It's possible, it can be seen from many places." An Wujiu said, "especially the ubiquitous cameras on Floor A."

This possibility was beyond everyone's imagination, but Yang Erci was not surprised. She quickly thought of the list of movies she saw in the laboratory on the fourth floor, and the last one was "The Truman Show".

Perhaps A02 is really the same as Truman in the movie. All the social relationships he has are part of the experiment, part of this growth show.

So she also raised a question: "Excuse me, was this experiment planned by A01's father?"

A circle appears on the screen.

"Yes."

"Then it was continued by A01?" Yang Erci continued to ask.

"Yes."

The two affirmations basically established the direction of the plot.

An Wujiu rationalized his thinking, "We now at least know that A02 is nominally the management of this shelter, the adopted son of the previous manager, and the younger brother and lover of the current manager, but in fact, he is the management of this shelter. An important experimental subject in the detention center. Judging from A02's personality, he was raised to be very kind and dedicated to the children, so the content of this experiment is likely to be carried out with the slogan of "all for human beings" and with the The A02 clone after gene editing is a continuation to ensure that the experiment will not be interrupted."

"Then for what purpose? Just to raise a child?" Josh asked.

"It may be brainwashing with beliefs, let's see what kind of person this child will grow into in the end." Nan Shan put forward a conjecture.

Yang Erci thinks this is possible, "Maybe they also set up a control group for the experiment, such as clones that have not received positive guidance and have incomplete memory."

After finishing speaking, she looked in the direction of the screen, "Am I right?"

The system's answer confirmed her guess.

"Yes."

This can explain why some A02's personality is very bad, but he himself looks upright in the video.

"They just selected a child with a natural pathological defect from countless abandoned babies, and under artificial manipulation, let him grow into a perfect child that can continue."

Hearing this, Shen Ti felt uncomfortable, wanted to move, but still didn't move, because he was very close to An Wujiu, if there was any movement from him, An Wujiu might be trapped even deeper.

"It can almost be described to the system, right?"

"Wait," Zhong Yirou said, "It's not just the ins and outs, the system requires the truth to be more than 80% similar, and we still have a lot of omissions, such as..."

She thought for a moment, “Belonging to every character we represent.”

"We are all dead." An Wujiu said very directly.

"All dead..." Wu You looked at Shen Ti, "A01 included?"

An Wujiu nodded, "Everyone, from the moment we initialized the game, has all died. The strangle marks on Yirou Nanshan's neck should be the marks of their being killed. You probably were pushed into the game. In a bathtub or something, you have water on your knees, your upper body is completely soaked, and you may be forced to kneel on the side of the bathtub."

"But how to explain that they died during the editing process?" Wu You said, "My diary has not been edited yet."

"It's easy." An Wujiu said, "First of all, you don't have to be in front of the host to write, maybe you only need permission. Secondly, A02 is an acquaintance, and you are writing something that he can't read. If he suddenly Appears, if you think about it, will it be temporarily shut down and get up to deal with him?"

Wu You nodded.

An Wujiu looked at Yang Erci, "Your throat was cut, I suspect it was cut with tools from the B05 laboratory."

"What about A01?" Nan Shan looked at them, "There is no wound on his body."

"Both of us have watches." An Wujiu took Shen Ti's wrist very naturally, "And they are all broken watches. The time on Shen Ti's watch stopped at 3:19 am on October 8th. Minutes, and mine was around 3:20 that day."

"The most important point." An Wujiu put down Shen Ti's hand, "I have the same smell as him."

Wu You and Nan Shan narrowed their eyes at the same time.

"No." An Wujiu reluctantly denied, guessing that they had misunderstood, Shen Ti kept laughing beside him instead.

"It smells like bitter almonds. It's very light. Maybe I'm more sensitive. I've only smelled this smell on him and me."

Yang Erci understood, "You mean cyanide?"

An Wujiu nodded, "I speculate that A02 poisoned A01 that night, and at the same time committed suicide by taking the poison."

After hearing all this, Nan Shan suddenly thought of what he said on the first floor before, that the Feng Shui here is not good.

"The back-shaped structure blocks luck, and Feng Shui is unreasonable. And a long time ago, some places would build baby towers, which were very small. They would throw unwanted babies in them and let them fend for themselves. Most of them were female babies. .”

After he finished speaking, he looked at the others, "I think that the building was built in such a shape, plus the structure of each floor, that it is likely to lock the soul of the child who was sacrificed inside, but in the end it is locked. It was the seven of us who died."

"This statement is quite creative." Shen Ti raised his eyebrows, "So, the game starts at twelve o'clock in the evening, and the last person dies at three o'clock in the morning, maybe the first person will be twelve o'clock in the evening. It's about the same time as the log's storage time."

An Wujiu felt terrible, "So this game, in fact, let us players replace the ghosts of the dead to go back to the first floor, and use our own eyes to discover and experience the darkness and ugliness here from beginning to end. If you don't open the secrets of the detention center, you will be trapped here forever, and you will have a chance to leave if you unravel it."

Nan Shan nodded, "Very likely, there was a tradition of burying a corpse for three days a long time ago, and the 72 hours here may mean that."

"So that's how it is..." Josh sighed, "We are like ghosts who lost their memory after death, trapped in this building."

Things gradually became clear.

An Wugui was cautious, thought it over carefully, not only described the ins and outs of the matter, but also described everything made by the detention center to the system, and waited for the final result with others.

"The results are being analyzed."

"Now announce the accuracy rate."

A number appears on the screen.

"The similarity between the results of your analysis and the truth is about 95%. Congratulations to everyone for completing this mission, and this is the first time that all members have passed this level since the opening of this round of game dungeons."

Most of them may not have died in the previous levels.

"Is this a record breaking?" Shen Ti raised the corners of his mouth and turned his head to look at An Wujiu.

"It's not necessarily clear." An Wujiu said indifferently.

The screen suddenly played some surveillance images, and the people inside had the exact same face as An Wujiu.

It turns out that the system will reset the disk for them in this way.

In the picture, A02 grows from a child to become the pillar of the shelter center. He is very busy every day. In order to give the children a better life and a better future, he almost devotes most of his energy to it.

But what he doesn't know is that these jobs are actually a sham, and he's working for something that doesn't exist, or even goes against his values and beliefs.

What he believed to be colleagues, such as B05 and C04, were in fact the engineers who edited his genes, E06 and E07, who kept and processed his clones. And D03, who has always been regarded as a friend, is just a "made" friend.

Even "lover" is fake.

Excluding the work, A02 spent the rest of the time chasing A01. On the screen, A02 puts on An Wujiu's face, showing affection to his titular elder brother A01 in every possible way, and finally they become an underground couple.

"It's not necessary to use the player's face as a model..." Wu You felt very uncomfortable looking at this extremely OOC picture.

Shen Ti sighed shamelessly, "Fortunately, I'm good-looking."

An Wujiu glanced at him, unexpectedly, some unsuitable images began to appear on the screen.

Nan Shan immediately pushed down Wu You's hat to the bottom, covering her eyes, "Kids don't look at it."

Yang Erci shook his head very speechlessly, and turned his face, but Zhong Yirou opened his eyes wide and began to appreciate carefully.

"You two... Forget it." She said halfway, but didn't go on.

Surveillance even recorded A01 and A02 having sex, as material.

At first An Wujiu was watching with an inquiring heart, but suddenly his face burned.

He didn't know if it was because the person in the video was facing his face, or because the person looked exactly like Shen Ti.

The face on the bed was almost flushed, powdered all over, panting abnormally with his mouth open, his fingers almost pinched into the other's arm, the whole person seemed to be drowning in a hot, humid and sticky sea, exuding a strange feeling all over his body. A temperament that An Wujiu has never had before.

It was weird and embarrassing.

An Wujiu still lowered his eyes, waiting for this passage to pass, he thought he was pretending to be calm, after all, no one would know what he was thinking.

But the red ears still betrayed him.

Just when this episode was about to end, when A01 put on his clothes and was about to leave, the silent Shen Ti let out a long sigh.

"well."

An Wujiu turned his face sideways, "What are you doing?"

Seeing his cold expression, Shen Ti laughed, "I won't tell you."

An Wujiu was flabbergasted, feeling displeased, but he didn't continue to ask, otherwise he seemed to be very concerned.

Monitoring updates, A01's performance on the bed is recorded in the growth show's experiment manual. Once A02's body is deteriorating, it will directly start the "inheritance" experiment, that is, collect the memory of the current clone, and then make a detailed analysis of the current clone. He euthanizes, resuscitates the next, implants the memory.

He typed a line.

[This experiment will provide great value for human beings to achieve immortality. ]

It turns out that A02 is just a small screw to promote the future of mankind.

It's just a piece of fresh experimental data.

In the screen, A01 is manipulating the system. A02 suddenly comes in, saying that he wants to give him a surprise, and covers A01's eyes with his hands.

A01 was afraid of being exposed, so he shut down the system hastily while closing his eyes, causing a bug in the system's self-repair.

In fact, the bug is not big, it just delegates the authority of the E layer to all staff, including A02.

The curious A02 entered the E layer, only to find that countless bodies of himself were frozen in the liquid nitrogen cabin.

So everything behind was also discovered by him.

The moment the deception was exposed, A02 lost everything, including his own identity.

He is nothing, not even a separate human being.

And his unshakable belief has been completely shattered. This is not a paradise to save children, but a hell that eats people. The children he cherishes have no freedom at all, and even lost their lives, and he himself is not What savior is just a test product.

Watching the moment A02 hissed and cried bitterly, the seven people in the fluid swamp also fell silent.

None of them can understand this kind of tragic life.

So on the night of October 7th, A02 started killing people from the E floor and went all the way to the top floor.

He added the highly toxic substance he brought from the B floor to the red wine, changed his blood-stained clothes, and came to room A01.

In the video, A02 smiles poignantly with An Wujiu's face, and can easily win the love and pity of anyone. Perhaps because of this, he also gets a rare and sincere kiss from A01.

After the kiss, he said to A02, "I plan to make our relationship public."

"Don't you like children? We also adopt one, and treat it as our child."

adopt

Another test subject

A02 smiled and said yes, then handed the red wine to his hand.

Unprepared, A01 took a sip, then put his arms around A02's waist, speaking half-truths and half-fake love words.

And A02 also leaned on his shoulder docilely, "I really love you, from the first time I saw you."

"No," he smiled, "It was the first time I saw you from my body."

A01's face suddenly changed, he let go of the hug, backed away a little, and before he had time to ask, he spat out a mouthful of blood.

A02 stretched out his hand and wiped the corner of his mouth for him, "My memory is either lacking something or repeating, but there is one thing, no matter how many times I copy it, I firmly believe in it."

"It's just that I love you."

"What about you?" A02's eyes have lost their light, "Do you still remember how many times I am?"

A01's blood kept pouring out, staining red the new shirt A02 gave him and the couple watch he bought for him.

Before waiting for an answer, A02 kissed A01, mixed with blood and poison, and put an end to their deception where no one survived.

"Brother, let's go to hell together."

The monitor has been recording until the end, good and evil, deceit and sincerity, calculation and revenge, everything is turned into data and stored forever.

The system makes a sound.

"This is the hidden plot of this round of the game."

The fluid that imprisoned them disappeared, and everyone was free again.

And the huge screen slowly came down, turning into an incomplete puzzle.

An Wujiu discovered that the pieces of the puzzle had the same shape as their key.

The system told them: "After the key puzzle is completely restored, you will receive corresponding instructions, type true end, and leave the game."

All the key fragments were on An Wujiu's body, An Wujiu reached in, but the fragments in his pocket were gone.

"I have what you're looking for."

It was Josh who spoke. He spread his hands, and there were glittering fragments piled up in his palms.

Wu You frowned, "What are you doing? Why are you taking key fragments?"

Everyone was more or less surprised by the development of the matter, but An Wujiu was very calm, as expected.

"You have a special mission, right?" An Wujiu took a step closer, turning his back on the guest, "Let me think about it... You are a player who is about to be resurrected. After doing enough NPC missions, you came here, that is, Your last chance to be a player, right?"

Josh's face was bad, and after being exposed, he smiled and confessed, "Yes, I am, and now I want to clear the level by myself."

As he said that, he directly took the pieces in his hand and walked to the incomplete puzzle, and restored the pieces in a somewhat irrational manner.

"Brother Wugui."

Wu You glanced at An Wujiu.

"Let him go." An Wugui let it go, staring at Josh's back, watching him work hard for his resurrection.

"Actually, I have noticed it a long time ago, and even know when you took the fragments."

Josh stopped moving.

"I am a very cautious person. Every fragment here means the life and death of the seven of us, so I kept it very carefully." An Wujiu looked indifferently, "Only in the fluid, my lower body completely sinks in, and I couldn't take care of it because I was too busy asking questions. You took all the pieces by your special means at that time, right?"

"I just use you to collect all the fragments." Josh didn't look back, "Since when did you find out?"

An Wujiu smiled, "You really don't have any flaws, because you didn't harm anyone, and you even gritted your teeth and endured the pain to help us complete the task."

"But since the system has set up a special character, it will inevitably set up clues for players to discover his existence."

"And this clue is the playing cards you found at that time."

"Poker?" Wu You frowned, thinking of something, "Ghost cards."

An Wujiu nodded, "That's right, Josh, you know that playing cards will reveal your identity, so you made some small tricks on purpose, if I'm not wrong, there must be glue on the back of the 3 of diamonds you are wearing now." Sticky traces."

Shen Ti smiled, and began to applaud enthusiastically.

"Yes, you are right." Josh did not turn around, but admitted, "I just tore off your square 2, and then tore off the ghost card stuck behind the square 3 to make the No. 2 card disappear, the box There is an illusion of ghost cards hidden in it, pointing to the metaphor of A02's death."

"You found out a long time ago, why didn't you expose me?"

Josh pasted the last piece of the puzzle in his hand.

"Because there's no need."

An Wujiu walked towards him, "This is not a zero-sum game, since we can all survive, why not do it?"

"I was indeed used by you, but from another perspective, you also made necessary sacrifices for our customs clearance. Without you, we would not be able to pass the fourth floor."

Josh's hand trembled a little. He took it off and looked at the puzzle in front of him. Adding the words they collected before, it was a paragraph.

Everything is a hoax. (Everything is a hoax)

A child conSecration. (A child's sacrifice)

This is your sin. (This is your sin)

I truly love you deeply. (I truly love you deeply)

This is our revenge. (This is our revenge)

Nobody is innocent. (Nobody is innocent)

___ should be destroyed. (___ should be destroyed)

We shall be burned in hell. (We shall be burned in hell.)

One word is missing.

Josh turned his head and frowned at An Wujiu.

An Wujiu's face was always calm and calm, with only a faint smile on his face, as long as he didn't change into another look, he would be like a perfectly tuned machine.

"Here I am."

Shen Ti stretched out his hand, holding the last fragment between his fingers.

"Sure enough, you still kept a hand." Josh said.

Shen Ti smiled, and stepped forward, "Soldiers never tire of cheating, let alone knowing that there is a second or fifth boy among us, of course we must keep a hand on me who is the most reliable."

He hugged An Wujiu's shoulders and shook, "Really."

An Wujiu felt that he was like a frustrated puppy now, the kind of frustrated dog who made great contributions to the barking team.

"Yes, you are the most reliable."

"Why doesn't it feel like a compliment?" Shen Ti walked over, put the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle away, and patted it.

The complete puzzle disappeared, and something fell from the sky. Shen Ti picked it up. It was a bag of chocolates, the number of them was the same as their current number, a total of seven pieces, which looked very unpalatable.

"Eat." Shen Ti opened the chocolate and distributed the chocolate to everyone.

"Just eat it." Wu You was a little suspicious.

An Wujiu took Shen Ti's bag and took out his own, only one was left.

"Let's eat, do you remember the jigsaw puzzle just now? It's the password for hiding the head. The first letter of each sentence is connected to 'eat it now', and the last piece is written organization, organization."

"I see."

Everyone else ate it with confidence, An Wujiu finally handed the chocolate bag with one piece left to Josh.

Josh's big eyes looked at An Wujiu, suspicious and pitiful.

"Are you sure you want to give it to me?"

"Of course." An Wujiu ate his chocolate, "I've been acting for so long."

"Aren't you afraid that I will go out by myself and kill you?"

An Wujiu smiled, "I guess you didn't have to kill other players in your resurrection mission, if so, you probably would have done it long ago, because you are one against six, weak and weak, so it's impossible Hiding until the end, at least I will attack Yirou who is exhausted."

"But you didn't, so I judge that you don't have this kind of mission, you just need to get out alive. Of course, if you go out by yourself, you will get the most points."

Shen Ti leaned next to An Wujiu, "It's not enough, hiding so covertly, I'm afraid there is still a mission to conceal his identity, if he is discovered, he will fail."

"That's why I didn't expose you." An Wujiu said.

"But you exposed yourself."

"That's right, the hidden mission failed."

An Wujiu asked, "But you shouldn't fail completely because of your identity exposure, you can still be resurrected."

Josh was in a complicated mood, he didn't understand why An Wujiu wanted to help him, condone his lies and betrayal, but he also felt sad because no one cared about his life or death.

Perhaps it was precisely because of this that he chose to be shocked by Wu You when he could obviously hide.

An Wujiu is an existence that can easily influence others.

A holographic projection has appeared where the jigsaw puzzle once hung, with only one question on it.

[Do you want to leave the holding center? ]

Next is [Yes] or [No].

He raised his hand, intending to press [Yes] to leave, even though he knew it would be useless now.

An Wujiu grabbed his hand and pressed [No].

Josh thought it was An Wujiu who regretted it, "Are you crazy? Then you won't be able to go out!"

An Wujiu let go of his hand and said calmly: "This is not the true end."

Sure enough, after choosing [No], the complete system of the containment center appeared on the holographic projection, including those underground experiments and corresponding materials.

This is the hint given by the last two sentences of the puzzle.

An Wujiu and Shen Ti used the permissions of A01 and A02 to sort out and send out everything done by the containment center to the outside world, exposing the ugly truth, and finally dismantled and deleted all the permissions of the entire organization.

"You didn't realize that we didn't actually see a few real children."

An Wujiu said, "Those alienated monsters are actually not children, but our characters who are alienated. Their obsession and fear have transformed all monsters."

Yang Erci understood, "The children were released by A02."

An Wujiu nodded and typed a line.

"Burn down the abandoned baby shelter."

A fire came suddenly and devoured everything.

In the flames, all seven of them also disappeared.

"Congratulations to the seven players who passed the level and became survivors, setting a new record for all players surviving in this round of the game.

There are no eliminated players in this round. If the identity of the revived player is revealed, the bonus points for this round will be lost. "

"Enter the settlement page."

They fell into a pure white void and kept falling.

An Wujiu opened his eyes, Shen Ti was the closest to him.

He is the one who has to solve all doubts.

So after confirming that he survived, An Wujiu couldn't help but speak.

"I want to ask you a question."

Falling too fast, the gust of wind opened the distance between the two of them, blowing An Wujiu's long hair.

Shen Ti reached out and grabbed his arm as he fell.

"What are you asking?"

"You..." An Wujiu hesitated for a rare moment, but only for a second, "Why did you make that wow sound?"

Shen Ti reacted for a while, looking a little dazed, but soon laughed.

It turned out to be this.

The meaningless pure white is reflected in An Wujiu's pupils, but the green eyes, red coral, and everything in Shen Ti's eyes are colorful, as if they are shining.

"I said it might offend you."

Their speed slowed down, gradually falling to the ground, An Wujiu's feet landed slowly, a strand of hair sticking to his cheek.

"It's hard for me to be offended."

"Okay, then I'll tell you the truth." Shen Ti thought what he said was cute and a little funny, seeing his face, subconsciously reached out and brushed the lock of hair to the side of his face.

"I admit that after seeing the video, I had a little, a tiny little bit, some kind of weird, unexplainable..."

An Wujiu stared into his eyes, listening to him hold back the last two words.

"… expect."