Chapter 64: The Dialectic Game (Conclusion) |
With his usual, unchanging smile, Qi Si asked, "Why can't you be the one to come out?"
The voice from within the door chuckled softly. "Because you want to clear the instance, and I hold the key to doing that."
"Clear the instance?"
Qi Si's eyes narrowed slightly.
An instance NPC wouldn't normally know such details, unless...
"You're not an NPC?" Qi Si asked.
The voice laughed and uttered a single word: "Guess."
"..."
Qi Si, who had never guessed a multiple-choice question correctly in his life, had no intention of guessing now.
Beyond the door lay a vast temple, dimly lit. Its corners were shrouded in shadow, obscuring any details.
The ancient walls were covered in chaotic lines, murals that seemed to tell mythological stories, yet it was impossible to discern their subject, as if their meaning had been forcibly erased by some unseen power.
Embedded in the ceiling above, a pair of crimson eyes gazed down upon the entire temple. The faint red light they cast enveloped everything and everyone, painting the scene with an air of bloodlust.
In the center of the temple stood a high-backed chair. Seated upon it was a young man who looked identical to him. He was currently yawning, his tone languid. "You brought the key, right? Give it to me."
Qi Si noticed that the young man before him had sharp, distinct features. The white shirt he wore was the same one Qi Si had on before entering the instance, and there was no number on his cuff.
—From every angle, this person looked more like a real human than he did.
The inhuman face he had seen in the mirror flashed through his mind again. Qi Si recalled the instance’s name.
The Dialectic Game. What is a dialectic? To debate the ego, the id, the super-ego... to debate existence itself.
The researchers' attitudes and Jin Yusheng's secondhand descriptions had negated his social identity as "Qi Si."
After seeing his own appearance, he had negated his own natural identity as the human "Qi Si" and calmly accepted the idea of existing as a clone.
Later, he realized he was still in the instance and picked up the identity of "Qi Si" once more, only to quickly discover the bodies of eight other "Qi Sis."
He wasn't the most special one, but every single one of him possessed the instinct to survive.
He didn't care if he was the real "Qi Si" or not, but to leave the instance as a player, he had to be, and could only be, "Qi Si."
These thoughts raced through his mind. The newcomer narrowed his eyes, a faint smile playing on his lips. "This research facility is too cold and dull. I have no desire to spend the rest of my life here—the real world is far more interesting."
The reclining young man sat up a little straighter, mirroring his expression perfectly. "I think so, too. That's why I added a little Easter egg when I designed this facility. If you manage to escape, you might get to see it."
Qi Si stroked his chin and asked with great interest, "Who are you?"
The young man countered, "And who do you think you are?"
As he mentally calculated the trajectory and distance for an attack, Qi Si smiled. "I can be anyone. But in this particular situation, I think it's best for me to be 'Qi Si'."
"It seems you've already figured it out," the young man said, also smiling. He rose from the high-backed chair and walked toward him, step by step.
That familiar yet strange face looked down at him, a gaze of both pity and mockery. "Then I can only tell you, with regret, that I am the real Qi Si. And you... are my clone."
"The victor is the one who gets to define everyone's identity, isn't that right?" As Qi Si spoke, he completed his calculations. He shoved the corpse in his hands toward the young man while simultaneously lunging forward, raising his elbow to strike the other's neck.
The young man before him smiled, his expression laced with sarcasm, as if he had anticipated everything. He sidestepped the corpse, raising his right arm in a gesture identical to Qi Si's, but a glint of silver flashed between his fingertips.
Catching a glimpse of the silver bracelet on the other's wrist, his gaze hardened.
Right, a weapon. He was missing a weapon...
From the very beginning, the mastermind had never given him a chance to acquire one...
The young man's eyes curved into crescents as he spoke in a taunting tone, "Only Qi Si can outwit Qi Si. Does hearing that make you feel any better?"
Yes, the one who knew him best had always been himself.
In any game between opponents of equal skill, the slightest misstep in detail could be the deciding factor.
This was never a fair game. In a game against oneself, the one with the first-move advantage would never leave an opening for failure...
"It does make me feel a bit less upset," he admitted. "But being so thoroughly outplayed is still rather irritating."
The icy fingertips were already sweeping toward his neck. The young man with the blade offered a smile that could almost be described as gentle. "If you're so irritated, then you should just die quickly."
A searing pain, like a blade's cut, shot from the point of contact. Warm liquid sprayed out, carrying with it all the strength and heat from his body.
Helplessness and cold swept over him in dense waves, dragging him from head to toe into a bottomless abyss of nothingness.
It was a scene of utter despair, yet he felt an inappropriate sense of exhilaration.
The unique experience of dying was thrilling. The amusement of discovering the truth outweighed the value of life itself. He was so excited he wanted to burst out laughing.
Unfortunately, his muscles were no longer under his control. At this moment, he couldn't even manage a twitch of his lips.
And so, filled with regret, he could only fall forward and embrace death.
...
For two perfectly rational individuals with identical physical conditions to determine a winner, the only variables to manipulate are information, equipment, and the order of play—this was the foundation upon which this unfair game was planned. Time rewound to the very beginning. After The Dialectic Game instance loaded, Qi Si opened his eyes to find himself seated in a temple, upon a throne.
The system interface displayed only a single line of text:
[Main Quest: Obtain the Key of the Super-ego]
Beside him lay a long scroll of parchment, on which a set of rules was written in a script he could recognize:
[1. As a temporary designer for the Weird Game, you cannot leave the main hall until the task is complete. However, you may use your consciousness to redesign and rearrange the buildings outside the main hall and deploy a set number of NPCs.]
[2. Once the design is complete, the scene will be put into operation. You will be unable to make any changes to any detail.]
[3. The Key of the Super-ego is located in the side hall. It cannot be seen or detected by NPCs, and NPCs cannot interact with the Key of the Super-ego in any way.]
[4. There are eight death traps in the corridor outside the main hall. Each can only be triggered once. They cannot be avoided or resisted. Encountering one means instant death.]
[5. Nine clones possessing your complete memories and thought processes will be deployed into the scene as players, one by one. You may select their spawn point, but once chosen, it cannot be changed.]
[6. After a clone dies, its body will not disappear. Except for the location of the Key of the Super-ego, the rest of the scene and NPCs will reset before a new clone is deployed, until all clones have been used.]
The rules were clear, practically spelling out the solution for the player: use the first eight clones to trigger the eight death traps, then have the ninth clone complete the mission.
But achieving this result was not so simple.
Qi Si knew he was deeply suspicious. If he let a clone see the corpses of its predecessors, what happened next would become uncontrollable.
Therefore, he needed to provide a plausible explanation for the bodies, but one that wasn't so logical that it screamed of being a setup.
The dual theories of "clones" and "parallel universes" would work in succession to effectively lower the clones' suspicions.
Qi Si also knew he was completely selfish and self-serving. He couldn't let the clones discover the existence of the main quest, or they would likely refuse to pave the way for the original and might even maliciously destroy the Key of the Super-ego.
Thus, he needed to make the clones, amidst their own doubts of existence, gradually solidify the false belief that "I am the superior individual, the one most likely to escape," and in turn believe that all their actions were in service of their own survival.
Finally, out of a certain morbid curiosity, Qi Si designed the research facility instance. He was very curious to see what kind of expression he would make when faced with the negation of his own existence.
Playing with people was fun, but wasn't playing with himself a form of fun as well?
As for whether he might be killed by his own creation after toying with himself, Qi Si wasn't particularly concerned.
Firstly, he had the home-field advantage and a weapon; if he still couldn't win, he might as well chop himself up and feed himself to the pigs. Secondly, dying at his own hands wasn't necessarily an uninteresting experience. If he could take the body out of the instance, he was quite keen on turning himself into a specimen.
Soon, all preparations were complete.
Under Qi Si's watchful gaze, Clone No. 1 woke up in the small room and found the Key of the Super-ego in the drawer.
He didn't know what the key was for, but before the researcher entered the room, he managed to hide the cold key under his tongue and carry it out...
...
In the dimly lit temple, Qi Si crouched down, pried open the corpse's tightly clenched right hand, and retrieved a key from its grasp.
[Name: Key of the Super-ego]
[Type: Item (Cannot be taken out of the instance)]
[Effect: None]
[Note: Did 'I' kill "me," or did "me" kill 'I'?]
Seeing the question in the note, Qi Si smiled. "What does it matter? Even if he killed me, as long as he believes he is me, then the one who survives is me."
"Natural selection, survival of the fittest. My very existence in this world is the result of winning a competition against billions. What's the harm in another contest, a one-in-ten elimination?"
"For me, a person's consciousness is constructed from multiple dimensions—memory, intelligence, thought patterns, behavioral logic. My physical existence is not important. I am more than happy to select the most outstanding version of me to become 'me' through competition."
[Main Quest Completed]
[Congratulations to the player for clearing the single-player puzzle instance, The Dialectic Game.]
[In the rationalist's game, the existence of the ego, id, and super-ego has long transcended their original boundaries. From a macro perspective, "I" am always I.]
[The Dialectic Game - True End: "I" has been recorded.]
[Automatic teleportation out of the instance in three minutes.]
Qi Si sat back down in the high-backed chair and looked up at the crimson eyes on the temple ceiling, letting out a short, derisive laugh. "Is this the so-called answer you wanted to show me?"
Time ticked by, second by second. After a long silence, a voice that was his own echoed from the depths of his mind: "Haven't you already grasped it? Would it make you feel better if I told you that I *am* you? After all, only Qi Si can outwit Qi Si! Hahaha!"
The moment the voice faded, the countdown timer in the upper left of his vision abruptly froze.
Qi Si felt as if he had lost his physical form in an instant, the tendrils of his consciousness flowing like a tide into every corner.
In his panoramic view, the scene changed drastically. The white walls of the cloning facility rapidly faded and discolored, replaced by mottled, gray-streaked stone.
A fine line of fire appeared, and the futuristic corridor ignited like an old photograph touched by a flame. The illusory facade burned away, leaving behind a gallery of murals filled with bizarre, unsettling lines.
Scenes buried deep in his memory resurfaced like a flood. Qi Si's pupils constricted.
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