Chapter 28: Social Darwinism |
It was already midnight when Qi Si returned to his residential complex.
The old complex was a festering sore on the city, rotten from the inside out.
The first wave of residents had moved out one by one, leaving behind the refuse—the poor and the elderly. When the poor became poorer, new poor people moved in. When the old died, new old people arrived to wait for their turn.
Ever since the world's nations were demoted to provinces under the Federation's rule, poverty had spread like a plague across the globe. With the exception of a few key regions, most places had achieved a true equality of wealth—everyone was equally destitute.
Utilities would cut out once every week or two. Spittle and bird droppings caked the pavement, long untouched. Foul water seeped from the cracks of overflowing trash cans. There was no need to worry about people moving away; ninety-nine percent of places were just as wretched.
Qi Si had little regard for external labels like wealth or poverty. An ugly entrepreneur couldn't escape the fate of being sent to a pig farm, while a handsome poor person might find a place in a private collection.
Still, he detested the impoverished city, for one simple reason: he hated the rain here.
The industrial zones, having bled the city of its resources, hung over it like a storm cloud, lacing even the rain with heavy metal dust and particles of unknown composition.
When the rain stopped, it left behind puddles of contaminated water that shimmered with a suspicious sheen under the streetlights. Every now and then, a few blister-like bubbles would surface, bringing to mind a witch's potion from a fairy tale.
By the time Qi Si reached the entrance to his building, the cuffs of his pants were soaked through.
He pushed the door open, walked straight to the elevator, and pressed the button for the eleventh floor.
With a creak that seemed to portend disaster, the elevator ascended to the eleventh floor. Then, with a new, unbearable screech, it shuddered its way back down to the first.
Qi Si stood outside unit 1101 and keyed in the password on the electronic lock.
His parents had bought this apartment. After they died in a car accident when he was sixteen, he had used some rather complicated and not entirely legal means to become the sole owner of the property.
He had lived here for six years now. It was hard to say whether it was out of nostalgia or habit.
The couplets on the door were so faded the characters were illegible, tattered and peeling like a scab from a wound.
But behind the door, the two-bedroom apartment was impeccably clean. The snow-white walls and gleaming floors made one doubt a single speck of dust could be found.
The master bedroom had been sealed off for years, so the only spaces in regular use were the second bedroom, the kitchen, and the bathroom. Cleaning was not a demanding task.
Qi Si tossed the suitcase containing the body into the bathroom, then went to the sink and washed his hands under the full force of the faucet.
Even now, there were still things he couldn't quite figure out, like why Liu Ajiu had chosen to rob his studio, and how he had been subdued so easily...
Ah, well. It didn't matter.
Qi Si scrubbed between each of his fingers with soap, rubbing his hands until they were raw and red before he finally stopped.
He went into the kitchen, grabbed a pack of instant noodles, and cooked them. He ate slowly, slurping them down bit by bit, a perfunctory end to a long-overdue dinner.
At one-thirty in the morning, Qi Si took a shower, pulled a fresh white shirt from a wardrobe filled with identical ones, and began to feel a wave of drowsiness.
Although the Weird Game's instances didn't take up any real-world time, on a conscious level, he had been mentally wound tight for days.
The final curtain call had been a one-man show, a whirlwind of activity and passionate performance, capped off by a close-up view of a collapsing skyscraper.
The star of the show, his excitement spent, let out a slow yawn, pulled out his phone, and typed "Weird Game Forum" into the search bar.
Humans are creatures that huddle together for warmth, adept at using labels to sort themselves into groups, either to exclude others or to find their own kind.
Most players dragged unexpectedly into the Weird Game felt helpless and desperate. It was inevitable that, for their own psychological balance, they would gather with other "unlucky" souls to share their tragic experiences.
Chang Xu had mentioned before that information about the Sariel Guild could be found on the "forum," implicitly suggesting that a "player entering their second game" could access it easily.
Considering the average person's information-gathering skills, Qi Si leaned toward the theory that this forum existed on the public web, accessible through a simple search.
It turned out his guess was correct.
The page loaded, and after scrolling past a few irrelevant novels and comics, Qi Si quickly found a website with silver text on a black background.
#Selling a possible Main God-related item, DM if interested. Federation currency only, cash in person.#
#Female high school student here, have my own teaming item, looking for a pro to carry me.#
#Spilling the tea on the Listening Wind Guild's new vice president, Yu Jinsheng.#
#First NE clear for 'Scream Park,' 80,000-word analysis and guide, full instance walkthrough included.#
#Fu Jue appreciation thread! Bumping for XP and levels, hehehe.#
...
Just like any other forum, the homepage of this unique community was flooded with a mix of wheat and chaff.
Of course, for Qi Si at his current stage, ninety percent of this information was useless.
A pinned post served as a primer for new players. Qi Si spent half an hour reading it from top to bottom, grasping the basic facts:
First, the Weird Game first appeared on January 1, 1999, thirty-six years ago. To date, at least four million people had been drawn into it.
Players had countless theories about the game's origin and how to beat it, but the theorists had yet to reach a consensus. Only one thing was certain: "The rules cannot be defied."
As for what the "rules" actually were, the replies in the thread were a heated debate. Some claimed they were like the rules in creepypastas, others argued they were laws of nature, and still others believed they were the fundamental principles governing all things.
...
Second, those not chosen by the game could not know of its existence. Anyone who learned of its existence would inevitably be chosen.
If you tried to tell an innocent bystander about the Weird Game, they would automatically filter the information. They wouldn't hear it, or they'd assume it was the plot of a novel. Even if they saw the Weird Game forum, their eyes would just slide past it as if it weren't there.
No wonder Qi Si's previous investigation had stalled at a crucial point. However, according to this post, he shouldn't have been able to find even a single clue—yet for some reason, the reality had been quite different.
...
Third, players had formed various guilds based on different philosophies. Although most guilds exploited new members, squeezing them for points and items, newcomers without a guild tended to die even faster.
The most prominent guilds were Kyushu, Listening Wind, and Sariel. There was also one called "Balance," which shared its name with a real-world illegal church—whether that was a coincidence or not was unknown.
[We are all human, our fates intertwined, our hearts connected. We share a common ground and a common goal. In the struggle against the weird, only by standing together and helping one another can we achieve final victory!]
This was the Kyushu Guild's declaration. Qi Si had been hit with this sappy speech the moment he entered the forum, and now he was seeing it spammed all over the replies in the guild introduction section.
Recalling his experience in Rose Manor, he almost laughed out loud. ...
Fourth, players who had cleared three or fewer instances were considered newcomers. Only after clearing their third instance could they become official players and unlock the full range of features, including a personal game space, the player plaza, and the shop.
Newcomers were drawn from a novice pool of instances, while official players were drawn from a standard pool. On average, the standard pool was more difficult, but this wasn't an absolute rule for individual instances.
The novice pool had its death traps, and the standard pool had its gimmes.
It was widely acknowledged that the third instance was a major hurdle. Many players died inexplicably right before becoming official players, often in completely illogical ways. Situations where "the strong die and the weak live" were common.
...
Fifth, there was rumored to be a Final Instance. The trigger conditions and content were unknown, but if a single player could clear it, they could have any wish granted—including rewriting the rules of the Weird Game, resurrecting and freeing everyone, or even shutting down the game forever.
The player with the most support, the one believed most likely to clear the Final Instance, was someone named Fu Jue. He was ranked first on the overall power leaderboard, served as the vice president of the Kyushu Guild, and was referred to in the replies as "Chief" or "God Fu." He had countless followers and seemed poised to be elevated to the throne of a savior.
...
"The Final Instance? What a flimsy promise..." Qi Si sneered. "Would the entity that created the game's rules really leave a loophole that works against it? Interesting."
Qi Si smiled, a cynical, biting expression. He felt that this whole Weird Game, from its mechanics to its players, was a complete mess.
—As if it had been passed between several different development teams and planners, each with their own ideas, resulting in a jumbled, incoherent monstrosity.
He reined in his scattered thoughts and searched the forum for "Sariel."
The search returned a flood of results, all with high engagement. Most of them were denunciations of the Sariel Guild, as if it were an infallible target, the black sheep of the flock.
Qi Si learned that Sariel was one of the first guilds established in the Weird Game. It was led by a president code-named the "Puppet Master," whose true identity was unknown and who was notoriously elusive.
The entire guild claimed to adhere to Social Darwinism, advocating for the elimination of weaker players to counteract the game's perverse "survival of the weakest" law. At the same time, they funneled resources to elite players in the hopes of triggering and clearing the Final Instance.
What caught Qi Si's attention the most was an official statement from Sariel: if anyone killed a member of their guild and they found out, they would hunt that person down to the ends of the earth.
"I thought they were all about Social Darwinism. What's this, then?" Qi Si muttered, narrowing his eyes. "Huddling together for warmth while preaching about 'isms'... is this all just to satisfy their president's adolescent power fantasies?"
Being targeted by a pack of unreasonable madmen was definitely not a good thing. It would be a huge pain.
Although Qi Si was well aware that he was no reasonable, normal person himself, he still felt it was... unsportsmanlike for an old, established guild to target a newcomer like him.
Yes, he sternly condemned such double standards.
Bored, Qi Si searched for the keyword "Rose Manor" and found a pile of strategy guides. It seemed this instance had been picked clean.
Interestingly, however, all dozens of the guide records were for the [Normal End - "Bloody Bonds"], achieved by following the rules and ensuring one's own survival until the end.
One player wrote with lingering fear in their post:
[This was my second instance. There were only three of us players, but a full eight rules to follow! To put it bluntly, you have to test the rules' validity with your own life. The other two were on their third instance; I really didn't think I'd make it out alive!]
[For the first two days, I followed the rules meticulously while they broke more than I did, and they both died during the night. Honestly, I didn't believe in the minimum death count mechanic back then. With them both dead, I had no idea how to clear the instance. Was I supposed to go to the third floor?]
[On the third night, Miss Anna broke down my door and came at me with a two-meter-long scythe! Just when I thought I was dead for sure, a red dress suddenly flew out from under my mattress and vanished before my eyes. I realized time had rewound by five minutes!]
[I figured it was better than waiting to die in my room, so I immediately ran downstairs to see if I could escape the manor. I got out of the castle, but Miss Anna was waiting in the garden! She came after me, swinging her scythe! I ran for my life, and then some old woman in red appeared out of nowhere and tangled with Miss Anna, telling me to run...]
[The butler showed up too. I thought he was going to help Miss Anna, but he actually led me to the main gate, opened it, and let me go. I cleared the instance just like that, in a total daze. I came down with a high fever afterward and nearly died...]
Judging from the forum posts, previous players who got the Rose Manor instance had all cleared it by triggering the "minimum death count" mechanic, remaining clueless about the conditions for activating the time reversal.
So, the red dress he had found under the mattress wasn't just a clue; it was also a one-time-use life-saving item.
When a player faced certain death, the dress would be automatically consumed to trigger a brief time reversal.
If you were on the True End route, as Qi Si and Chang Xu had been, the dress would be used up in the first room on the third floor, allowing you to smoothly obtain the clue about Miss Anna's parents.
But if you were on the Normal End route, like the original poster, you'd unwittingly use it to save your skin during the "battle royale" on the third night and make your escape.
Reviewing all this, Qi Si couldn't help but let out a snort of derisive laughter. "Don't tell me I'm the first person to get the TE? No way, right? It can't be."
Just then, a recruitment post from the Kyushu Guild popped up in the "recommended" section.
Qi Si clicked on it.
It was an old thread with over ten thousand replies. The gist of it was a call for all players to record their instance experiences and the methods for achieving different endings.
[We are now lone boats in a sea of people. Those not chosen by the game do not know what we are facing, and we cannot expect them to understand.]
[Leave your records here. Light the way for those who come after, or simply leave proof that you were here. Let all of us remember your existence.]
[One day, we will clear the Final Instance and shut down the Weird Game. The sealed past will see the light of day. Contributions and sacrifices will not be forgotten. Memories will remain, souls will be immortal, and together, we will gaze upon a future free of the weird!]
Qi Si stared at the motivational essay for two seconds and was successfully disgusted. He immediately looked for the block option.
After searching for a while and finding nothing, he could only, with a bellyful of displeasure, close the tab on the saccharine post and exit the forum.
In any case, he had no intention of playing the hero and posting a guide about his clear.
Who knew what powers were behind the forum? He might post something, and the next thing he knew, his address would be leaked.
After mentally reviewing information security protocols from start to finish, Qi Si reached under his bedsheet and pulled out a large sheet of rubbing paper, holding it up before his eyes.
Imprinted on the paper were phrases like "Go to hell" and "You're not human," the characters so wild and menacing they looked as if they might leap off the page and slap the young man holding it.
Qi Si admired it, mesmerized, for a moment. He had finally escaped the false, harmonious atmosphere created by the Kyushu Guild and returned to the tangible malice of reality.
He gave a satisfied yawn, turned off the light, wrapped himself in his blanket, and fell into a deep sleep.